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full screen Russian President Vladimir Putin, here with replaced Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu behind him at last week’s Victory Day parade in Moscow. A few days later, Sjojgu got a new job. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/TT
Another high-ranking military officer in Russia is arrested accused of having committed bribery.
Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov, head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s personnel department, has been detained. Russia’s federal investigative agency Sledkom announces that he is suspected of having received an unusually large bribe.
There have reportedly been raids on Kuznetsov’s home and properties, where the authority claims to have seized, among other things, gold and cash.
President Vladimir Putin has moved Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to a new role in the country’s powerful Security Council. Shoigu is being replaced by the more economically oriented top adviser Andrey Belousov, which observers see as a move to streamline Russia’s rapidly escalating war economy.
A couple of weeks ago, one of Sergei Shoigu’s deputy ministers was arrested on suspicion of bribery, which was interpreted in many quarters as a signal that Shoigu’s position had weakened.