When a top defense official is arrested in Russia, it’s interesting.
When four senior defense figures were handcuffed in less than a month, it was more than just a pattern. It was a purge.
The latest high-ranking soldier to be arrested is Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, Deputy Chief of the Army General Staff and head of the Main Communications Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces.
Charged with accepting large-scale bribes, he was detained for two months before trial.
The list of Russian defense figures who have been disgraced for corruption includes Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov and Lieutenant General Yury Kuznetsov, head of the Defense Ministry’s personnel department.
There were also changes at the highest levels of the Ministry. In the recent reshuffle, President Vladimir Putin replaces his defense minister of 12 years, Sergei Shoigu, with technocrat economist Andrei Belousov. The move is widely understood as an effort by the Kremlin to improve the operational efficiency of the Russian military and tackle corruption.
Mr. Shoigu was assigned a new job, that of secretary of the Russian Security Council. As for Vadim Shamarin’s superior, Valery Gerasimov, he is currently still the chief of staff of the Russian armed forces.
However, the high-level arrests in the ministry and general staff reflect negatively on the military leadership that has directed Russia’s war in Ukraine.
There is a great irony in all of this.
Do you remember Yevgeny Prigozhin? A year ago, the leader of the mercenary group Wagner publicly criticized military commanders. He accused senior figures of incompetence and corruption, blaming them for failures on the battlefield in Ukraine. Prigozhin especially focused his anger on Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov. He asked for them to be replaced.
The public controversy spiraled out of control, leading to a 24-hour mutiny. Wagner fighters take over key military installations in southern Russia and begin marching towards Moscow. It is an unprecedented challenge to the Kremlin’s power. But its main aim is to eliminate the country’s top military leadership.
It failed. President Putin stands by his military generals. Prigozhin lost the power struggle with Mr. Shoigu and General Gerasimov. And soon after, he lost his life in a plane crash.
But a year later, a Kremlin-backed military purge began.
And this tells us something about Vladimir Putin. The Russian President does not like to act under pressure. Order him to fire a minister or an army general, and he is unlikely to agree right then and there. He will not be told what to do.
That doesn’t mean Putin won’t act. At the time of his choosing.
What is unclear is how far this purge of the Russian military will go; How many more high-ranking figures will have to sit behind bars.
Former commander of Russia’s 58th Army Corps has. Major General Ivan Popov was arrested this week on suspicion of large-scale fraud. Last year, he announced he was fired after complaining to military leaders about problems on the front lines in Ukraine.
