Russia has jailed a prime protection official, the fourth in a month, increasing President Vladimir V. Putin’s largest shake-up of his army management for the reason that invasion of Ukraine greater than two years in the past.
A Moscow army court docket ordered Lt. Gen. Vadim Shamarin jailed for 2 months on Wednesday on suspicion of “large-scale” bribery, Russian legislation enforcement authorities mentioned on Thursday. He faces 15 years in jail, state information businesses mentioned. Common Shamarin was a deputy head of the Russian army’s foremost commanding physique, the overall employees, and oversaw its communications directorate.
The detention of Common Shamarin is the most recent in a collection of high-profile arrests which have coincided with Mr. Putin’s appointment of a brand new protection minister, Andrei R. Belousov, earlier this month.
Timur Ivanov, a deputy protection minister, and Lt. Gen. Yuri Kuznetsov, who oversaw the ministry’s personnel division, had been detained for a similar bribery cost in current weeks. And earlier this week, state media reported that Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, the previous commander of Russia’s 58th Mixed Arms Military, had been detained on fraud allegations.
The Kremlin tightly controls the justice system, and brought collectively, the corruption arrests sign Mr. Putin’s most aggressive effort to overtake his army management for the reason that disastrous beginnings of his Ukraine invasion in early 2022.
“Combating corruption is deliberate work,” the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, advised reporters on Thursday, rejecting the notion {that a} purge was underway. “There’s no discuss, after all, about any sort of marketing campaign.”
Within the first two years of the battle, Mr. Putin oversaw few publicly introduced modifications, not to mention arrests, of his army management, regardless of widespread reviews of corruption, mismanagement and incompetence by his generals.
Together with his army on the again foot, analysts mentioned, Mr. Putin positioned a premium on loyalty and sought to keep away from doubtlessly destabilizing personnel strikes.
However now, Russia’s Military is on the offensive alongside a lot of the frontline, whereas Ukraine struggles with shortages of arms and personnel. Having orchestrated a rubber-stamp re-election in March and an inauguration to a fifth time period in Could, Mr. Putin seems assured sufficient in his grip on energy and his army edge to come back down harshly in opposition to army leaders who’ve fallen out of favor.
One of many Kremlin’s targets seems to be exhibiting the Russian public that it’s taking severely the army’s corruption downside, a subject that common Russian bloggers who help the battle have written about extensively for the reason that invasion started.
Underlining that effort, certainly one of Russia’s foremost state information businesses, RIA Novosti, reported on Thursday that Common Shamarin’s spouse purchased a $200,000 Mercedes S.U.V. in November 2022 — despite the fact that his obtainable monetary reviews present a family revenue of not more than $34,000 a yr on the present trade price.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, a legislation enforcement physique, alleged in a press release that Common Shamarin had acquired bribes from to 2016 to 2023 totaling about $400,000 on the present trade price from a phone producer within the Russian metropolis of Perm.
In trade, the committee alleged, Common Shamarin elevated the Protection Ministry’s orders of the corporate’s merchandise.
Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting.
