Russian authorities have arrested a second senior Defense Ministry official on bribery charges days after President Vladimir Putin replaced the defense minister.
A second senior Russian defense official was arrested on bribery charges, officials said Tuesday, days after President Vladimir Putin replaced the defense minister in a Cabinet shake-up that fueled expectations of more such purges. Lt. Gen. Yury Kuznetsov, the 55-year-old chief of the Defense Ministry’s main personnel directorate, was arrested in a raid early Monday on his suburban Moscow villa, Russian media reported.
In the raid, agents of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, broke down the doors and windows of his home while he was asleep, the reports said, seizing gold coins, luxury items and just over $1 million in cash. His wife, who previously worked in several Defense Ministry structures, was also reportedly interrogated.
Patrushev will oversee Russian shipbuilding industries in his new job, but may later also deal with other duties, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday. He rejected notions that Shoigu's reshuffle represented a demotion, describing his new role as a 'very senior job with broad responsibilities.
He and the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, had faced strong criticism from Russian hawks for military setbacks, including the failure to capture Kyiv early in the war and a Russian retreat from northeastern and southern Ukraine later that year. The shake-up came as Russian troops pressed new offensives, trying to take advantage of a slowdown in Western aid to Ukraine in what many observers see as a decisive moment in the war.
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