A Russian general much liked by frontline troops but accused by Kremlin prosecutors of massive graft and corruption was transferred from a state detention facility to house arrest, the official Russian news agency Vesti reported on Monday.
Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov will remain at his personal residence until prosecutors employed by Moscow’s 235th Military Garrison Court complete an investigation into claims the senior paratrooper officer forged documents and defrauded the state while in command of Russia’s 58th Army, a formation deployed to south Ukraine since February 2022, news reports said.
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Video published by Kremlin news outlets showed a smiling Popov standing in a courtroom holding cell and wearing handcuffs, and then grinning broadly once released. He had been in state detention since May 17 and was first arraigned on May 22.
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Charges announced by prosecutors on May 24 said that the state had amassed convincing evidence Popov ordered the misdirection of 1.7 million tons of metal construction materials intended for defensive fortifications, in the process stealing Russian state property worth the equivalent of $1.47 million. Popov and his legal team have denied all wrongdoing.
On July 4, Popov defense lawyer Sergei Buinovsky told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency his client had information about a possible leak of confidential information from the Kremlin via a treasonous senior official, and that he had filed a criminal complaint asking law enforcers to investigate. Popov’s knowledge of the purported link might change the court’s stance on the corruption charges, the lawyer said. On July 11 Buinovsky told media his client would be willing to return to the fighting front.
The Tuesday court order changing Popov’s detention from a government jail to house arrest did not give details on terms negotiated between the defense, prosecutors and the judge for the general’s release.
The semi-official Zaporozhskiy Front, a popular pro-Kremlin information platform focusing on combat operations in the southern sector, said: “This news is already having a very positive effect on the mood of everyone who was under his (Popov’s) command. We hope that in the near future Comrade General will return to the direction and take everything into his steely hands!”
Aleksander Sladkov, a “correspondent” for Russia’s state Izvestiya agency, told his 900,000 followers of the release: “The main thing, guys, is not to make Ivan (Popov out to be) a rebel. He is a flesh-and-blood man of the system. Not even a rebel at heart. He is a statesman, a general of the Russian Ministry of Defense… The trial is still in progress. I wish Ivan and his family health and patience.”
A career officer with a reputation for aggressive tactics, straight talk and impatience with civilian oversight of the military, Popov, 49, seemed to avoid taking sides during a June 2023 mutiny by the Russian mercenary Wagner Group.
In July 2023 Popov appeared to run afoul of the Kremlin with a controversial “personal message to his troops” published to hundreds of thousands of followers, sharply criticizing top military leadership, and stating Kremlin inefficiency and unwillingness to support fighting soldiers was responsible for massive battlefield losses.
Top army brass failure to deliver sufficient ammunition and long-range artillery to frontline troops, poor situational awareness by national intelligence services, and a lack of understanding in Moscow of the lethality of combat in Ukraine and the exhaustion for frontline troops, were among Popov’s main complaints. He was sacked immediately and later accused Russia’s then-Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, for critically damaging Russian military capacity and pursuing a personal vendetta against him.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent months has seemingly moved to battle corruption in military contracting and stoke army loyalty to his regime by unleashing law enforcement on selected military officials. In May 2024 Putin laterally transferred his longtime ally Shoigu to head Russia’s National Security Council and named civilian Andrei Belousov as Defense Minister.
The technocrat Belousov cited Defense Ministry reform and combating corruption and inefficiency as top priorities.
April saw the arrest of Timur Ivanov, a senior Defense Ministry official, on corruption charges, and General Yuriy Kuznetsov, a senior Kremlin official, on possible links to a bribery case.
According to unconfirmed reports, the “anti-corruption” crack-down within the Russian army have recently reached field commands, with the July 4 arrest of the commander of Russia’s elite 83rd Air Assault Brigade on possible corruption charges.
The official Red Star Army news agency identified him as Artem Gorodilov, a decorated paratrooper officer.
According to a New York Times investigation, at the outset of Russia’s main force invasion of Ukraine, Gorodilov, 39, commanded the 234th Guards Air Assault Brigade, a formation whose soldiers committed mass murders of civilians in the town of Bucha north of Kyiv.
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