Less than 24 hours after Vladimir Putin dismissed his defense minister, accusing him of failures in the war against Ukraine, another top Defense Ministry official was arrested on bribery charges. Lieutenant-General Yury Kuznetsov, the head of the Defense Ministry’s personnel department, was detained by masked security forces on Monday. The Investigative Committee announced that Kuznetsov is in pre-trial detention on large-scale bribery charges, although the specific details of the charges remain unclear. Kuznetsov is accused of accepting bribes from commercial enterprises from 2021 to 2023 in exchange for performing actions in their favor. This arrest follows the recent downfall of Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov on similar bribery charges, which was seen as a blow to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Shoigu was replaced by civilian economist Andrei Belousov in a surprise move by Putin, who cited the need for innovation in the defense ministry. The Kremlin has emphasized that Shoigu’s new post as head of the Security Council should not be viewed as a demotion, but reports suggest that Putin had lost confidence in Shoigu’s ability to manage the war against Ukraine amid corruption within the Defense Ministry. The arrest of Kuznetsov is being framed by Kremlin media as part of an “anti-corruption purge” within the Defense Ministry with Belousov now tasked with cleaning up the alleged corruption left behind by Shoigu. Former Putin adviser Sergei Markov highlighted the influx of money into the Defense Ministry during the war and the doubling of the budget as contributing factors to rampant corruption within the military.
Shoigu’s legacy now appears to be one of wartime corruption and incompetence, with his ouster potentially attributable to his alleged inability to handle the war and the corruption within the Defense Ministry. Pro-war bloggers linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had previously called for the removal of Shoigu and his circle before his death in a plane crash, celebrated Kuznetsov’s arrest as a step towards ridding the ministry of corruption. Prigozhin’s short-lived uprising against the military last year was widely viewed as an assassination, further highlighting the turmoil within the Defense Ministry. The ongoing war against Ukraine, now in its third year, may be seen in a new light as the result of corruption within the military rather than solely the Kremlin’s policies.
The arrest of Kuznetsov and the recent shakeup in the Defense Ministry signal a move towards addressing corruption within the Russian military. Belousov’s appointment as defense minister is seen as a step towards innovation and reform within the ministry. Despite the Kremlin’s attempts to portray the changes as a positive step towards combating corruption, questions remain about the extent of corruption within the Defense Ministry and the impact it has had on the ongoing war against Ukraine. The dismissal of Shoigu and the arrests of high-ranking officials indicate a shift in the Russian military hierarchy and a potential turning point in the handling of internal corruption within the armed forces.
