The Kremlin escalated its crackdown on Russia’s top military ranks, with a new corruption arrest this week.
Russian authorities detained Lieutenant-General Vadim Shamarin, deputy to General Valery Gerasimov, head of the army’s general staff, on suspicion of large-scale bribe-taking, Russian state media reported Thursday.
It is the fourth arrest in the past month of a high-ranking military official, marking the biggest Russian army scandal in years. The detentions come as President Vladimir Putin carries out a sweeping reshuffle of top jobs, including a change at the head of the Ministry of Defense.
The string of arrests, beginning with Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov in late April, followed by Lieutenant-General Yuri Kuznetsov, head of personnel at the defense ministry, and Major-General Ivan Popov, former commander of Russia’s 58th army, appears to underpin an attempt to crack down on corruption, but also indicates a desire by the Kremlin to shuffle the deck in the defense ministry.
Shamarin was placed in pre-trial detention as a preventive measure on Wednesday on bribery charges, which is covered by an article in Russia’s Criminal Code that could see him face a sentence of 8 to 15 years.
The Kremlin has denied there’s a purge in progress, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling state newswire RIA that, “The fight against corruption is a continuous effort. This is not a campaign. It is an integral part, in fact, of the activities of our law enforcement agencies.”
Peskov noted that he could not to into further detail because he did not have the authority to do so.