The Russian military leadership has been rocked by financial scandals and arrests for weeks – in the midst of Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Now there are new arrest warrants.
The series of arrests for corruption and fraud scandals in the Russian military continues. The former head of the administration for the procurement of laundry and chemical cleaning products for the army has been arrested for accepting particularly large amounts of bribes, the Investigative Committee in Moscow announced. Officer Vladimir Demchik faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. The director of the Patriot military park was also arrested for embezzling state funds. Several army generals, including two deputy defense ministers, are already in custody.
The investigations against Demtschik are not yet complete, it was said. According to initial findings, the former ministry employee received four million rubles (around 42,000 euros) from a businessman in 2017 for concluding a contract with the ministry. The company then earned 574 million rubles from further contracts over the course of two years, it was said.
Several high-ranking military officers in custody
At the end of July, former Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov was taken into custody. The 69-year-old, a recipient of the “Hero of Russia” award, was responsible for the material and technical equipment of the armed forces in the first months of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine until he was released on September 24, 2022 after numerous mishaps.
The Russian military apparatus is considered to be extremely corrupt. Under the new Minister of Defense, Andrei Belousov, the military leadership is also to be purged of abuse of office and embezzlement. Most recently, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Vadim Shamarin, and the Head of the Main Personnel Department, Yuri Kuznetsov, were among those arrested.
The scandals all date back to the time of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whom Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin dismissed in May and made the new secretary of the National Security Council. Putin appointed the proven economist Belousov to manage the immense budget expenditures for the war more effectively.
Source: Stern
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