Purges in the Russian military are increasing: Deputy Chief of the General Staff arrested on suspicion of corruption.
Russia has arrested its deputy chief of the General Staff, General Vadim Shamarin, on suspicion of large-scale bribery. The arrest is one of many in Putin’s deepening military purge, according to the Telegraph. Shamarin is the fourth senior defense official to be accused of corruption in recent times. Just yesterday it was announced that General Ivan Popov, popular with soldiers, had been arrested on corruption charges.
What’s more, Moscow announced the arrest of a fifth senior defense official on Thursday evening. According to a statement from Moscow’s influential Investigative Committee, Vladimir Verteletsky was charged with “abuse of his official powers” and taken into custody. These arrests are part of a broader effort to combat corruption in the awarding of lucrative government contracts in the military, state news agency Tass reported.
The Telegraph also mentions that the crackdown began with the arrest of Timur Ivanov, the deputy defense minister, who was remanded in custody on suspicion of accepting bribes. Since then, General Yuri Kuznetsov, head of personnel at the Defense Ministry, and Major General Ivan Popov, former commander of Russia’s 58th Army, have also been arrested. It is suspected that many of them received kickbacks for contracts related to the modernization of the Russian military over the past decade.
According to John Foreman, the former British defense chief in Moscow, the Kremlin needed to crack down on increasing corruption in the armed forces. “Corruption got in the way of the war, it reached such heights of corruption and nepotism that something had to be done,” Foreman was quoted as saying by the Telegraph.