Another Russian general arrested on corruption charges

The Kremlin’s campaign to eradicate corruption corruption in the Russian army claimed a new victim on Sunday with the arrest of Major General Mirza Mirzaev on suspicion of taking down military contractors for epic kickbacks.

Mirzaev, 52, previously served as deputy commander in Russia’s Southern Military District for the national law enforcement agency Rosgvardia.

While serving as the Interior Ministry’s top official for logistics and supplies over a massive territory encompassing Russia’s southwestern regions, bordering Ukraine and the South Caucasus republics, Mirzaev reportedly demanded bribes of 140 million rubles ($1 .42 million) from a civil contractor that supplied prefabricated buildings to the government.

Through an intermediary, Mirza allegedly threatened the contractor with canceling a lucrative construction contract worth 480 million rubles ($4.88) if the company did not personally transfer the kickbacks to him in cash, prosecutors said in a filing court in Moscow. .

A judge ordered Mirzaev held without bail until the charges were investigated on January 2. Russian independent and state-controlled media widely reported the arrest and details of the alleged kickback scheme.

Russia’s main body for prosecuting serious crimes, the National Investigative Committee, opened a criminal case on October 28 against Major General Aleksander Ogloblin, former head of the Russian Army’s Signal Forces Command.

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According to a report by the independent news agency Astra, Ogloblin will be accused of taking bribes worth more than 10 million rubles ($101,000) while serving as the Russian military’s top communications official. He is said to have received kickbacks and incentive payments from, among others, managers of Telta, a major telephone manufacturer in the West Siberian Perm region of Russia.

Oglobin had been sent to prison for 4.5 years in February 2022 after being found guilty of taking bribes of 1.6 billion rubles ($16.27 million) in connection with the military’s purchase of telecom equipment, but was released after testifying against a colleague who was also involved in facilitating the sale of Tetla. to the Russian army.

An Oct. 30 statement from Britain’s Defense Intelligence Agency confirmed Oglobin’s second arrest and the new charges.

The most prominent arrest related to corruption of Russian generals so far in 2024 took place in May, when a military court in Moscow accused Major General Ivan Popov of fraud that led to the loss of more than 100 million rubles ($1.01 million) of state property. property while commanding the 58th Combined Army in fighting in southern Ukraine in 2023.

Prosecutors have accused Popov, a hardworking paratrooper popular with the troops, of conspiring to sell at least 2,000 tons of construction materials intended to be used for fortifications on the black market for personal gain. Popov has emphatically denied the allegations. In a pre-trial statement made at the military court of the 2nd Western Court in Petersburg on October 18, he said prosecutors had no viable evidence to support the charges and claimed he was being prosecuted because of personal revenge against him by other senior officers.

Popov, one of the few Russian field commanders willing to publicly criticize the top military leadership, has accused the army general staff and its head, Valeriy Gerasimov, of unprofessionally prosecuting the war against Ukraine and ignoring troop feedback. Popov claimed that “all officers under my command” would testify or provide written statements to prove his innocence.

On May 14, General Yuriy Kuznetsov, head of the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Department of Personnel and Commands, was arrested on suspicion of accepting “an exceptionally large bribe” while serving as chief of security at the General Staff of the Russian Army, according to reports. reports an independent news agency Abzatz. Investigators who searched Kuznetsov’s dacha house in an elite neighborhood outside Moscow found more than 100 million rubles ($1.01 million) in foreign currency, gold, high-end watches and art. items that prosecutors alleged were too valuable to have been acquired with his army salary, the report said.

In May, in addition to Kuznetsov and Popov, two other generals were arrested: Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov and Major General Vadim Shamarin – the second time the officer Kusnetsov turned against the states’ evidence to secure his release.

The UK Defense Intelligence report said: “The aim of the Russian authorities is almost certainly not the complete eradication of corruption: this behavior is fundamental to the functioning of the regime. Instead, Russian authorities are likely trying to limit corruption to more manageable levels.”