Defense Ministry officers arrested while reconfiguring military equipment

Vladimir Putin at a meeting with heads of military-industrial complex enterprises in Korolev near Moscow on Saturday Photo: Sergey Bobylev/Pool Sputnik Kremlin

Vladimir Putin prefers a purge to a soft spring purge.

Unsatisfied with the performance of his military, the Russian leader is arresting senior Defense Ministry officials as part of a selection process that analysts say is intended to punish the planners of his failed 2022 invasion of Ukraine and raise the effectiveness of his war machine.

“The arrests of at least five senior officers represent the most serious attack on the Russian army in almost 25 years. Putin's rule,» said Andrei Soldatov, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

When Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was charged with corruption in April, it was clear that his boss, Sergei Shoigu, would lose his post as defense minister. as a result of personnel changes in the Kremlin. What hasn't been so obvious is Putin's determination to make more systematic changes at the Defense Ministry.

Russia's FSB security forces have since arrested five more senior defense officials, and The Moscow Times reported there are plans to arrest dozens more.

It's a purge based on Putin's determination to defeat Ukraine and its NATO allies .

Timur Ivanov, Russia Deputy Minister of Defense in a cage during a hearing in the Moscow City Court on May 8. Photo: MOSCOW CITY COURT HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

As his troops advance on the battlefield, his factories produce munitions, and his disinformation campaigns erode support for Kyiv in Europe, it's time to keep the pressure on.

And that's exactly what Putin wanted. on the numbers.

Mark Galeotti, a professor at University College London and author of several books on Russia, says Putin tolerates corruption as long as it does not affect his personal projects.

“Putin now sees corruption in the Defense Ministry as an obstacle to success in what he needs to achieve in Ukraine,” he said. “That’s when he begins to seek repression.”

This approach was reinforced by the appointment this month of economist Andrei Belousov as Russia’s new defense minister. He is tasked with preserving the army's central place in the Russian economy and sorting out a Defense Ministry that is notoriously ineffective and corrupt. And I didn’t waste my time.

On May 13, Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov was arrested, and this week Deputy Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin and Vladimir Verteletsky were arrested. .

Vladimir Putin and former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu fish in the Tuva region of southern Siberia in August 2017 Photo: ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/AFP

These arrests fit a pattern of attacks on the heads of departments organizing the Russian army, rather than on front-line commanders. General Kuznetsov was the head of the personnel department, General Shamarin was the head of the communications department, and Mr. Verteletsky was the head of defense procurement.

Kirill Shamiev, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the arrests were a proven Kremlin strategy , because corruption is built into the system as a control mechanism.

“It is very useful for political control because people always know that something is always in control of them,” he said.

The only exception to Putin's purge of the Defense Ministry so far appears to be the arrest on Tuesday of Major General Ivan Popov, a famed combat commander, on suspicion of fraud. His real offense may have been that last year he demanded that his soldiers be given a rest.

Influential Russian military bloggers, outspoken critics of the Ministry of Defense, were furious over the arrest of General Popov. They described him as «one of Russia's best officers» and said Putin's purge needed to focus on Defense Ministry planners, including General Valery Gerasimov, who has led the Russian army since 2012 but is seen as a hard-working and uncharismatic leader.

Headquarters of the Russian Ministry of Defense on the banks of the Moskva River in Moscow Photo: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP

Putin, however, has been loyal to General Gerasimov despite the criticism, although John Foreman, a former British military attaché in Moscow, said the brutality of the purge at the Ministry of Defense could affect his calculations.

“It happens almost every day new arrest. We need to see where we are in maybe a month,” he said. “Gerasimov is as unpopular as Shoigu. He turned out to be a peacetime general, not a great wartime general.”

The irony is that these dismissals would be music to the ears of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former leader of Russian mercenaries who was killed during the war. A bomb exploded on his private jet last summer, weeks after he led a failed coup in Russia.

Prigozhin regularly ranted about the incompetence and corruption of the Russian Defense Ministry. He would have liked Putin's purge.