A senior Russian military commander was arrested Monday in a fraud case, the latest high-profile arrest in what appears to be a large-scale investigation into abuse of office in the military leadership of Russia.
Major General Valery Mumindzhanov, deputy commander of the Leningrad Military District, has been arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes worth more than 20 million rubles ($223,000), Russia’s Investigative Committee said.
He is the ninth top military official to be arrested in recent months on charges of fraud, bribery or abuse of power, including Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was arrested in April for bribery and later dismissed. The arrests began shortly before President Vladimir Putin Putin replaces Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with an economist, Andrei Belousov.
Analysts suggest the arrests are a sign that Shoigu’s associates are being removed from power and that most gross corruption will no longer be tolerated at the Ministry of Defense.
Mumindzhanov received the bribe from suppliers seeking to secure a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry for the supply of military uniforms, including for soldiers fighting in Ukraine, the Investigative Committee said. It added that at the time the bribe was paid, Mumindzhanov was the head of a department that procured supplies and resources for the Defense Ministry and that the contract for uniforms was worth 1.5 billion rubles ($16.75 million).
Investigators are also probing how Mumindzhanov and his family acquired more than 120 million rubles ($1.3 million) worth of property in the Moscow and Voronezh regions and whether it was legal, the commission said.
Last week, former Deputy Minister of Defense Pavel Popov was sentenced to prison on fraud charges. Popov is accused of forcing companies that had contracts with a military park in Moscow to do free work on his own properties. Investigators are also assessing whether Popov’s real estate portfolio — worth $5.5 million — was legally acquired.
Corruption within the Ministry of Defence “is so widespread” that the choice of who to arrest will be determined by “internal turf wars,” Richard Connolly, a specialist on the Russian economy and military at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said Friday.
The arrests “send a message in a strategically important sector. But they also offer an opportunity to settle some scores,” he said.
Officials have not disclosed how long Mumendzhanov will be held.
He is deputy commander of the Leningrad Military District, which was reformed this year as part of a broader Russian response to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. The district — which includes St. Petersburg — previously existed until 2010, when it was absorbed into another district.