Russia Charges Two More Military Officers With Bribery

Russia has charged two more military officers with taking bribes, investigators said on Monday, the latest in a string of arrests linked to alleged corruption in the defence ministry.

Ivan Populovsky, the head of a military representative's office, and his subordinate, Grigory Zorin, allegedly received over 11 million rubles ($120,000) from two companies that supplied electrical goods and cables to the defence ministry.

In return, the men were expected to weaken their oversight of the goods and give the companies "other privileges and preferences" when carrying out state contracts, Russia's Investigative Committee said.

"During the investigation, the defendants pleaded guilty and their involvement in other similar crimes, including those related to embezzlement of funds allocated for the needs of state defence orders, is being looked into," it added.

Moscow has arrested at least a dozen other military officials since April, part of what analysts have called a "purge" of inefficient or corrupt army leaders amid Russia's military offensive in Ukraine.

In May, President Vladimir Putin replaced longtime defence minister Sergei Shoigu with economist Andrei Belousov, widely seen as a bid to make the armed forces more economically efficient.

The defence ministry has been marred by repeated corruption scandals since the collapse of the Soviet Union but the problem has come under intense scrutiny since Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine in February 2022.

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