Another top official of the General Staff arrested in Russia
23 May 2024 12:19
Following Putin’s inauguration, Russia continues to purge its top military leadership. Today, the Russian media reported the detention of Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of the Russian armed forces general staff and head of the main communications department, reports [Kommersant]
Russian media report that Shamarin was detained in a case of receiving a particularly large bribe. The official was searched and interrogated. According to Russian law, Shamarin faces up to 15 years in prison.
In recent years, Russia has been undergoing purges and changes in the military leadership. Several criminal cases have been opened against senior officials of the Russian Ministry of Defence. At the end of April, Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested in Moscow on charges of taking a bribe. In May, Yuri Kuznetsov, the head of the personnel department of the Russian Ministry of Defence, was detained and accused of taking a bribe. The former commander of the 58th Army, Ivan Popov, who had criticised the Russian Defence Ministry, was arrested in a fraud case.
12 May Putin replaces Sergei Shoigu with Andrei Belousov as Minister of Defence. Russian insider sources claim that this appointment demonstrates Putin’s concern about the level of corruption, misuse of funds in the Russian army and the inefficiency of the Russian Ministry of Defence in general. A well-known Kremlin military blogger noted that Belousov’s new position “means the beginning of a large-scale audit and restructuring of all financial models” in the Russian defence ministry.
