A deputy chief of the Russian military general staff has been arrested on charges of large-scale bribery, Russian news reports said Thursday, the latest in a series of bribery arrests of high-ranking military officials, APA reports citing Associated Press.
The arrest of Lt. Gen. Vadim Shamarin followed the arrest this week of Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, a former top commander in Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, also on bribery charges.
In April, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested for bribery. Ivanov was a close associate of Sergei Shoigu, whom President Vladimir Putin dismissed as defense minister soon after Putin’s inauguration to a new term in May.
Lt. Gen. Yury Kuznetsov, head of the defense ministry’s personnel directorate, was arrested on bribery charges two days after Shoigu was replaced.
Shamarin is also the head of the defense ministry’s main communications directorate. He is being held in custody for two months, Russian news agencies cited a military garrison court as saying, but other details of the case were not reported.