all is not well in the russ military ......in fact ..... a lot of top figures are in gaol .....
When one top defence official is arrested in Russia, that’s interesting.When five senior defence figures are handcuffed in less than a month, that’s a purge.
The latest senior military man to be locked up is Lt Gen Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of the army’s general staff and head of the Main Communications Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces.
Accused of large-scale bribe-taking, he’s been placed in pre-trial detention for two months.
Hours later came the news that a senior defence ministry procurement official, Vladimir Verteletsky, has also been detained. According to Russia’s Investigative Committee, he’s been charged with abuse of authority in the execution of a state defence order.
The roll-call of Russian defence figures who, within a month, have fallen from grace on corruption charges includes Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov and Lt-Gen Yuri Kuznetsov, head of the defence ministry’s personnel directorate.
There’s also been change at the very top of the ministry. In a recent reshuffle, President Vladimir Putin replaced his defence minister of 12 years, Sergei Shoigu, with technocrat economist Andrei Belousov. The move was widely interpreted as an attempt by the Kremlin to boost efficiency in the Russian military and tackle corruption.
Mr Shoigu was given a new job, that of secretary of the Russian Security Council. As for Vadim Shamarin’s boss, Valery Gerasimov, for now he remains chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces.
But high-profile arrests in the ministry and the general staff reflect badly on the military leadership that has been directing Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The former commander of Russia’s 58th army, Maj-Gen Ivan Popov, was arrested this week on suspicion of large-scale fraud. Last year he had announced he had been sacked after complaining to military leaders about problems on the front line in Ukraine.
