A senior Russian army commander was detained in a fraud case Monday, the most recent high-profile arrest in what seems to be a sweeping investigation into abuse of office in Russia’s army management.
Maj. Gen. Valery Mumindzhanov, deputy commander of the Leningrad Navy District, was detained on suspicion of receiving a bribe of greater than 20 million rubles ($223,000), Russia’s Investigative Committee stated.
He’s the ninth high army determine to be arrested on fees of fraud, bribery or abuse of workplace in current months, together with Deputy Protection Minister Timur Ivanov, who was arrested for bribery in April and later dismissed from his place. The arrests started shortly earlier than President Vladimir Putin replaced Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with an economist, Andrei Belousov.
Analysts counsel the arrests are an indication that Shoigu’s associates are being faraway from energy and that probably the most egregious corruption within the Protection Ministry will now not be tolerated.
Mumindzhanov obtained the bribe from suppliers who wished to safe a contract with Russia’s Ministry of Protection for the provision of army uniforms, together with for troopers preventing in Ukraine, the Investigative Committee stated. It added that, on the time the bribe was paid, Mumindzhanov was the top of a division which sourced provides and sources for the Protection Ministry and that the contract for uniforms was price 1.5 billion roubles ($16.75 million.)
Investigators are additionally assessing how Mumindzhanov and his household acquired greater than 120 million roubles ($1.3 million) of property within the Moscow and Voronezh areas and whether or not it was authorized, the committee stated.
Final week, former Deputy Defense Minister Pavel Popov was ordered held on fraud fees. Popov is accused of forcing firms that had contracts with a army park in Moscow to do work on his personal properties totally free. Investigators are additionally assessing whether or not Popov’s property portfolio — price $5.5 million — was acquired legally.
Graft within the Protection Ministry “is so rife” that the selection of who’s arrested will probably be knowledgeable by “inside turf wars,” Richard Connolly, a specialist on the Russian economic system and army on the Royal United Companies Institute in London, stated Friday.
The arrests are “sending a message in a strategically essential sector. But additionally providing the prospect to settle some scores,” he stated.
Officers haven’t stated for a way lengthy Mumindzhanov will probably be detained.
He’s deputy commander of the Leningrad Navy District, which was reformed this yr as a part of a broader Russian response to Finland and Sweden becoming a member of NATO. The district — which encompasses St. Petersburg — had beforehand existed till 2010, when it was absorbed into one other district.
