New Delhi: Deputy head of the Russian army’s general staff Vadim Shamarin and a senior procurement official in its ministry of defence were arrested Thursday, highlighting the widening scope of Kremlin’s anti-corruption investigation now in its second month. The latest arrests came less than a fortnight after Moscow appointed a new defence minister.
With the arrests of lieutenant-general Shamarin and Vladimir Verteletsky, the official from the defence ministry, the number of officials detained in Russia over the past month now stands at five. The arrests indicate a wider shake-up in the military by President Vladimir Putin as he embarks on his fifth-term as leader of Russia.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, denied that the arrests of senior military officials is part of a purge of the armed forces during a call with journalists Thursday, as reported by Associated Press.
“The fight against corruption is consistent work. This is not a campaign, it is constantly ongoing work. This is an integral part of the activities of our law enforcement agencies,” said Peskov on the conference call.
Shamarin is accused of accepting bribes to the tune of almost $400,000 between 2016 and 2023 from a communications equipment manufacturer in the Urals, according to media reports.
The 235th garrison military court announced Thursday that Shamarin should be held for two months in custody, according to the Russian state-owned news agency TASS. If found guilty, Shamarin is facing the possibility of 15 years’ imprisonment.
According to media reports, Shamarin has been in charge of overseeing the army’s Signal Corps, which is responsible for military communications. Shamarin is a deputy to Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, who has faced criticism for his management of the war in Ukraine.
Verteletsky stands accused of signing off on incomplete work leading to the loss of nearly $764,000 — amounting to abuse of power in execution of a state defence order.
Russia’s anti-corruption drive started in April 2024, when a deputy minister of defence Timur Ivanov, considered to be a protégé of former defence minister Sergei Shoigu, was arrested on charges of taking bribes.
Ivanov was in charge of military infrastructure projects, including the reconstruction of Ukrainian city of Mariupol, currently under Russian occupation, according to media reports. A few weeks after Ivanov’s arrest, Shoigu, defence minister of Russia since 2012, was replaced with an economist Andrei Belousov. Shoigu was made the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia.
Shoigu was widely blamed for the early failures faced by the Russian military in its military operation in Ukraine, including the capture of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Yevgeny Prigozhin, former commander of the Wagner mercenary group, had accused Shoigu of incompetence and corruption as he launched his mutiny in 2023, demanding both the former defence minister’s dismissal and that of Gerasimov.
Days after the change in leadership at the ministry of defence, Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov, in-charge of military personnel, was also arrested on bribery charges by Russian authorities.
Against that backdrop, a former Russian General, Ivan Popov, was arrested Tuesday on charges related to large-scale bribery. Popov was sacked in 2023 for speaking out against the high number of casualties in the war in Ukraine.
Russian military spending in 2024 accounts for almost a third of its entire budget. In October 2023, the Russian government announced that it proposed to allocate $109 billion towards military expenditure.
The sharp increase in defence spending opened up avenues for lucrative military contracts as Moscow ramps up its efforts in its “special military operation” in Ukraine. In recent weeks, Russian forces have started shelling the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, opening up another front.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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