Russian general arrested on corruption charges
The Russian defence ministry’s human resources chief has been arrested and accused of bribery in an apparent purge on allies of former minister Sergei Shoigu.
Lt Gen Yuri Kuznetsov was charged with accepting a particularly large bribe late on Monday evening, Russian Telegram channels reported.
It came hours after Vladimir Putin dismissed Mr Shoigu as minister of defence, in his most significant reshuffle since the full scale invasion of Ukraine began.
Three weeks earlier, Timur Ivanov, one of Mr Shoigu’s deputies, was arrested and charged with the same crime.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin also announced that Nikolai Patrushev, one of Russia’s most hard-line hawks, as his personal adviser.
Lt Gen Kuznetsov, a career officer who rose through Russia’s rocket forces, became the head of human resources in May 2023, effectively making him responsible for the management of roughly 1.3 million military and civilian staff.
The charges announced on Tuesday morning relate to his previous job as head of the eighth directorate of the Russian general staff, a department that runs the military information security service responsible for protecting state secrets.
Intended to intimidate
Russia’s investigative committee said in a statement: “According to the investigation, in 2021-2023, as head of the eighth directorate, Kuznetsov received a bribe from representatives of commercial structures in exchange for performing certain actions in their favour.”
It said a search of his home uncovered “more than 100 million rubles (£875,000) and foreign currency, gold coins, collectable watches and luxury items”. He has already been remanded in custody.
Accepting a particularly large bribe, defined in Russia law as one over 1 million rubles, is punishable by a hefty fine or up to 15 years in jail depending on the details of the crime.
Putin dismissed Sergei Shoigu, who had been minister of defence since 2012, on Monday.
Andrei Belousov, previously a deputy prime minister and an economist, is set to replace him.
Mr Shoigu was appointed secretary of Russia’s security council, a sideways move that suggests he still has Putin’s favour.
The arrest of two of his close assistants at the ministry in less than a month will be seen as a rebuke from the Kremlin for his handling of the Ukraine war.
It may also be intended to intimidate career generals inclined to resist whatever reforms Mr Belousov, an economist, has been charged with overseeing.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin said Mr Patrushev would advise Putin on security issues and have special responsibility for “shipbuilding issues”.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said: “Shipbuilding is a strategic industry, huge and very complex. Patrushev’s vast experience will definitely play a big role.”
Mr Patrushev, 72, is a longtime ally of Putin from their days working in the Soviet Union’s KGB secret service together and is thought to have advised Putin to invade Ukraine in 2022 and has encouraged more confrontation with Nato.
Between 1999 and 2008, Mr Patrushev was head of Russia’s FSB intelligence service. British intelligence has said that he probably approved the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian security officer who fled to the West, by Russian agents in London in 2006.
Mr Patrushev had been removed as secretary of Russia’s influential National Security Council in a reshuffle on Sunday without immediately being given another job.
