Russia has jailed a prime protection official, the fourth in a month, increasing President Vladimir V. Putin’s greatest shake-up of his navy management for the reason that invasion of Ukraine greater than two years in the past.
A Moscow navy courtroom 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 companies mentioned. Normal Shamarin was a deputy head of the Russian navy’s primary commanding physique, the final workers, and oversaw its communications directorate.
The detention of Normal Shamarin is the newest in a sequence 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, have 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 navy 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, instructed reporters on Thursday, rejecting the notion {that a} purge was underway. “There’s no discuss, after all, about any form of marketing campaign.”
Within the first two years of the conflict, Mr. Putin oversaw few publicly introduced adjustments, not to mention arrests, of his navy management, regardless of widespread studies of corruption, mismanagement and incompetence by his generals.
Together with his navy on the again foot, analysts mentioned, Mr. Putin positioned a premium on loyalty and sought to keep away from probably 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 Might, Mr. Putin seems assured sufficient in his grip on energy and his navy edge to come back down harshly towards navy 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 navy’s corruption drawback, a subject that common Russian bloggers who assist the conflict have written about extensively for the reason that invasion started.
Underlining that effort, considered one of Russia’s primary state information companies, RIA Novosti, reported on Thursday that Normal Shamarin’s spouse purchased a $200,000 Mercedes S.U.V. in November 2022 — regardless that his obtainable monetary studies present a family earnings of not more than $34,000 a yr on the present change charge.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, a legislation enforcement physique, alleged in a assertion that Normal Shamarin had acquired bribes from to 2016 to 2023 totaling about $400,000 on the present change charge from a phone producer within the Russian metropolis of Perm.
In change, the committee alleged, Normal Shamarin elevated the Protection Ministry’s orders of the corporate’s merchandise.
Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting.
