Moscow. In only a month, till this Thursday as a result of it’s suspected that extra instances will quickly be recognized, the Kremlin licensed the arrest of 5 senior officers of the Ministry of Protection on prices of corruption, one thing uncommon for the Russian military in such a brief interval, much more so in occasions of “particular navy operation” because the invasion of Ukraine known as in Russia.
The spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dimitri Peskov, maintains that “there is no such thing as a purge” within the navy management and defends that the combat in opposition to corruption “is just not a marketing campaign, it’s a fixed subject and is carried out in all ministries, not solely in Protection.”
Nonetheless, the details appear to level in one other path. Whereas Sergei Shoigu – eliminated to a lower-ranking place as secretary of the safety council – was on the head of the Ministry of Protection, the now defenestrated generals, apart from his prime protégé, Timur Ivanov, the deputy minister accountable for the development space who fell in misfortune shortly earlier than, they believed themselves above all suspicion.
Already with the brand new head of the portfolio, Andrei Belousov, a technocrat near Putin whose mission appears to be to deliver order to the millionaire flows which can be destined for struggle, the Kremlin – within the opinion of Nikolai Mitrokhin, a navy skilled – is making use of the previous Soviet-era methodology of “not touching associates (Shoigu) and lashing out at subordinates,” eradicating recordsdata of their amassed excesses from archivists, awaiting the inexperienced gentle as quickly as they lose political safety.
Thus, one other shut collaborator of Shoigu, the final director of personnel of the Ministry of Protection, Normal Yuri Kuznetsov, suffered the identical destiny as Ivanov and ended up in preventive detention, accused of receiving “large-scale bribes” that would value him as much as 15 years in jail.
A couple of days later, President Putin dismissed Deputy Minister Yuri Sadovenko and appointed the auditor of the federation’s management workplace, Oleg Saveliev, in his place. Shoigu was in a position to take his stalwart, First Deputy Minister, Ruslan Tsalikov, to the Safety Council, and the alternative of Deputy Ministers Tatiana Shevtsova, Nikolai Pankov and Aleksei Krivoruchko, who offered his resignation final week, has not but been appointed.
And this Thursday a navy court docket in Moscow decreed preventive detention, each for alleged bribery, to Normal Vadim Shamarin, common director of Communications of the ministry and deputy chief of the military workers, and the top of a common directorate of the Division of State Commissions ( weapons, particularly) within the ministry, Vladimir Verteletsky, whose navy rank was not reported.
Within the warmth of corruption scandals, the arrest of Normal Ivan Popov, beneath the alleged cost of stealing 1,700 tons of metals destined for fortifications on the entrance in Zaporizhzhia is, in line with his followers, a revenge of Normal Valery Gerasimov, head of state Military main and prime particular person accountable for the operation in Ukraine, harshly criticized by Popov in 2023, dismissed by Shoigu the subsequent day and despatched to Syria.
In distinction, the information that Normal Sukhrab Akhmedov, Gerasimov’s protégé, ceased to be commander of the twentieth Military combating within the Luhansk area as of Thursday and is on “indefinite trip,” appears a blow to the chief of the Normal Workers.
Guerasimov’s future, in line with analysts, is unsure. On the one hand, he acquired a lift from the Kremlin by being ratified when Shoigu left and, on the opposite, it will be catastrophic to take away each on the identical time. However Belousov, on the finish of his look earlier than the Senate, slipped in a phrase that would resolve the way forward for many Russian troopers: “One could make errors, however one can’t lie.”
And the second is what, for a lot of Russian observers, is occurring on the entrance traces. Shoigu used to report “nice advances” that weren’t at all times confirmed, which can have exhausted Putin’s persistence in deciding to undertake an intensive restructuring of the navy management.
Virtually daily – this Thursday, to not go too far, it says that they took the city of Andriivka within the Donietsk area – the Russian Ministry of Protection experiences the “liberation” of a city or “progress” in the direction of both Chasiv Yar or Vovchansk, however has not but been in a position to conquer any of those squares, though the primary, Shoigu is alleged to have promised, needed to fall for the Victory Parade on Might 9 and the second is situated simply 5 kilometers from the border.
The assault that started on Might 10 by about 30,000 troopers introduced from Moscow and Saint Petersburg nonetheless continues in Vovchansk, with the Russian and Ukrainian troops separated by the Vovcha River, however this Thursday the commander in chief of the Ukrainian military, Oleksandr Syrskyi, assured that this Russian offensive “fully stalled” and stated that, in making an attempt to encompass Vovchansk, “the enemy additionally suffers important casualties within the path of the city of Liptsi.”
However, Russia launched this Thursday the second most vital air assault – missiles and guided bombs – in current days in opposition to “infrastructures” of the town of Kharkiv, inflicting seven deaths among the many civilian inhabitants and quite a few accidents, in line with the Ukrainian authorities. .
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– 2024-05-26 13:28:45
