SC reported on a new criminal case against officials of the Ministry of Defense
The Investigative Committee of Russia announced the initiation of a criminal case on suspicion of receiving a large-scale bribe against the head of the 4924 military representative of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, Ivan Populovsky, and his subordinate Hryhoriy Zorin.
As stated in the department’s announcement, two organizations fulfilling the state defense order for the supply of electrical products and cables agreed with officials of the Ministry of Defense to weaken control over the receipt of goods in exchange for a bribe in the amount of 11 million rubles. We are talking about OJSC “All-Russian Scientific Research Design Institute of Cable Production” and CJSC “Trading House “All-Russian Scientific Research Design and Technology Institute of Cable Industry”. It is confirmed that during the investigation, Populovsky and Zorin admitted their guilt. It is not reported what measure of suppression was applied to them.
Also on Monday, it became known about one more criminal case connected with the Russian military department. Roman Bezrukov, general director of “ERSM of Siberia” LLC, was detained on suspicion of major fraud, writes TASS. According to the investigation, during the construction of the communications control center for the Ministry of Defense, he stole about 1 billion rubles allocated for the construction, Sibir.Realii writes.
In recent months, criminal cases were initiated against many former and current high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defense. In April, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested in Moscow. He was accused of receiving bribes in the amount of more than a billion rubles from subcontractors. Ivanov did not admit guilt. In the case of Ivanov, two businessmen were also arrested – Sergey Borodyn and Alexander Fomin.
On May 14, the head of the Main Personnel Department of the Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Yury Kuznetsov, was detained. He is suspected of bribery.
On May 21, the court arrested the former commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army, Major General Ivan Popov, on charges of large-scale personal fraud. He was removed from his post in July 2023 after a report on the poor condition of the Russian army and high losses.
On May 22, the court arrested the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Vadym Shamarin in the case of “machinations”. Ego is suspected of receiving a bribe of 36 million rubles.
In May, Vladimir Verteletskyi, the head of the Department of the Ministry of Defense for the provision of the state defense order, was also arrested in a case of abuse of power. According to the accusation, his actions caused damage to the Ministry of Defense of 70 million rubles.
Also in July, the former Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia Dmitry Bulgakov, who was responsible for logistics, was arrested. RIA Novosti reported with reference to an anonymous source that Bulgakov, using his official position, lobbied the interests of JSC “Gryazinsky Food Plant” from the Lipetsk region.
On August 1, the head of the Russian company “Voentorg” Vladimir Pavlov was detained and arrested in the case of large-scale personal protection during the execution of contracts with the Ministry of Defense. Also in August, the director of Patriot park Vyacheslav Akhmedov was arrested, and then the former deputy defense minister Pavel Popov – he is suspected of fraud in connection with the activities of the park.
