The wave of arrests affecting the top of the Russian army has claimed a new victim: General Vadim Chamarine, deputy chief of staff in charge of communications, was placed in pre-trial detention by a military court on Wednesday May 22. According to Russian agencies, he is accused of having “accepted a particularly large bribe”facts for which he faces up to fifteen years in prison.
In the evening, another name was given by state media, that of Vladimir Verteletski, head of the ministry’s supply department, detained on the same charges. The day before, another general was arrested, this time on accusations of ” fraud “. Ivan Popov, former commander of the 58th Army, became famous in Russia for having sharply criticized, during the year 2023, the errors of the command in the Ukrainian campaign. Known to take care of his men, he was popular with the troops.
The cases of Generals Chamarine and Popov show that the arrest campaign is moving beyond the restricted circle of Defense Ministry officials to extend to the general staff and high-ranking officers. This campaign began on April 23 with the spectacular arrest of the Deputy Minister of Defense, Timour Ivanov, responsible for pharaonic projects such as the reconstruction of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. This arrest was followed by that of the ministry’s personnel manager, Yuri Kouznetsov, and several civilian business partners of these two men.
Selective arrests
If few details are given, the investigators do not link these different files together, at least publicly. “The fight against corruption is continuous work, it is not a campaign”, also commented on Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov. In fact, the selective nature of these arrests does not give them the appearance of a generalized purge, as the security services sometimes carry out among senior officials and elected officials.
The fact remains that these announcements raise questions: until the disgrace of Mr. Ivanov, whose expensive lifestyle had been known for a long time, no arrests had taken place within the army, nor since the start of the war in Ukraine, nor even after the revolt led by Yevgeny Prigojine, the leader of the Wagner militia, whom certain generals had received with benevolence or, at least, passivity. What’s more, these arrests are accompanied by movements at the top of the defense ministry, where several senior officials have been removed, including another deputy minister, Ruslan Tsalikov.
You have 56.9% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
