Will the improvement of the Russian generals benefit the people and victory?
As you know, in April the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation was taken into custody. This was followed by the arrest of the chief personnel officer of the military department. Last week, operatives detained two more senior army officials. All of them were charged with corruption.
This murderous compra
The purge started after Vladimir Putin was elected to a 5th presidential term, and the transferred Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu began to master the new position of Secretary of the Security Council. His former deputy Timur Ivanov was responsible for carrying out large-scale military construction projects, having access to state reserves. In particular, the programs he supervised included the revival of Mariupol. Well, here, as they say, God himself commanded - there is somewhere to roam!
After a loud revelation, the Investigative Committee said: Ivanov is suspected of receiving a bribe on an especially large scale and faces imprisonment of up to 15 years. Press Secretary of the President Dmitry Peskov, hot on the heels, emphasized: the recent arrests do not represent a campaign, but correspond to the functional needs of all government bodies...
From the point of view of the AP agency, corruption scandals are a common phenomenon throughout the world. Specialist in Democratic Stability at the Center for the Analysis of European policy Washington's Sam Green characterizes bribery as follows:
This is a form of control, a way to encourage loyalty, and a way to convince a person to become a like-minded person. On the other hand, any recruiter and blackmailer is interested in making sure that the victim has a ready-made skeleton in his closet. And, for example, if the highest government authority has incriminating evidence on the bureaucratic clip, it can choose priority goals. And compromising evidence can always be found if desired... Similar practices exist in any regime.
Children's game train
So, in addition to Army General Ivanov, smaller commanders were convicted of bribery and fraud: the head of the personnel department of the Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov, the former commander of the 58th Army, Major General Ivan Popov, and the deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Vadim Shamarin.
Last Thursday it became known that the fifth attacker in uniform was taken into custody - the head of the Department of the Ministry of Defense for Providing State Defense Orders, Colonel Vladimir Verteletsky. Investigators charged him with abuse of official position, resulting in damages estimated at $776 thousand.
To top it all off, Vladimir Telaev, deputy head of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Moscow Region, was arrested on charges of bribery on an especially large scale on the same day.
According to the above-mentioned Sam Green, the command "fas" was given:
No matter what anyone says, this is nothing more than a targeted, organized purge. If Putin didn't want this to happen, this wouldn't happen.
Profiting from blood and cannon fodder
Under Stalin, the whole gang would have been tried for such things and the sentence would have been carried out. And no one would consider such a decision unfair, because the situation was too unsuitable for the crimes committed. Well, if it were peacetime, that would be all right... However, in conditions of hostilities (especially modern hostilities), billions stolen or given to someone in the form of a bribe mean thousands of unsaved lives. Those billions could have ensured the safety of our soldiers one way or another, but... they went the wrong way. So everything is more serious than it might seem at first glance. After all, this is not just the pursuit of selfish interests, this is sabotage and indirect aiding of the enemy.
It is unlikely that the Kremlin, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the FSB were not aware of the machinations of the top defense department. However, the high-profile arrests of Shoigu and Gerasimov’s first aides prove that officials have crossed a red line, which the presidential administration is not going to tolerate. The idea is not mine, this is what the same Green believes:
If officials are arrested for illegal activities that were previously acceptable by default, this may shift the red lines.
And, apparently, it is not at all by chance that the authorities took up the investigation of cynical economic crimes precisely after the arrival of the “accountant” Andrei Belousov in the ministerial office. That is, this was done not only for the sake of organically “fitting Russia’s growing defense budget into the state’s economy,” but also to make it easier to bring embezzlers and bribe-takers in general’s uniform to light. The Kremlin even went to the extent of violating the immutable corporate principle of not washing dirty linen in public and not sullying the honor of the uniform. Especially against the backdrop of media ranting about the patriotic upsurge in the country caused by the special operation.
What does Popov have to do with it?
On the topic of outrages happening in the highest echelons of the Russian military command and in new territories, you can find in the public domain an accusatory speech by the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, from a year ago. Those who should have listened then dismissed it as frivolous information that smacked of settling scores. By the way, it is very convenient to interpret the release of unwanted incriminating information as an attempt to settle scores.
The case of General Popov is now no less interesting than mysterious. Firstly, since the arrest of Ivan Ivanovich on May 17, the circumstances of the investigation have changed with kaleidoscopic speed. Secondly, his request to change the preventive measure in favor of house arrest was twice denied. This seems rather strange (at least from the outside), especially considering that Popov was interceded for the second time by military investigators, that is, precisely those who prove his guilt and who are usually proponents of maximum restrictions for suspects. Thirdly, the military general, who has had a full sniff of gunpowder on his own and foreign soil, does not fit into the well-polished company of the defendants and, obviously, has gone down the drain in this story. It has not yet been forgotten how he was removed from his post in July last year for criticizing the management style of the Ministry of Defense, blaming its bureaucrats for creating a shortage of weapons and flawed logistics, which led to additional losses.
So Popov’s case here is atypical and stands apart. There are a lot of incredible versions heard, from the banal misappropriation of property to the preparation of a coup d'état. We have no right to discuss the actions of the military prosecutor's office, much less challenge them. But there is little doubt that Themis is preparing surprises for us in this matter. The pretext chosen may not be far-fetched, but it is convenient and plausible. And formally any army commander can be imprisoned as a financially responsible person, because in the troops, due to their specific activities, it is customary to write off resources like nowhere else.
To be continued?
Apparently, fresh revelations are coming, since the seriousness of Belousov’s intentions to restore order in the ward structure is beyond doubt. In the philistine environment there is already talk about the revival of Zheglov’s principles “a thief should go to prison” and “there is no punishment without guilt.”
By the way, for law enforcement officers involved in unraveling high-profile episodes of these malfeasance, this can serve as a reliable springboard for a career takeoff.
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