{"id":50447,"date":"2024-05-14T17:42:18","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T17:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/14\/russia-detains-senior-general-widening-military-purge\/"},"modified":"2024-05-14T17:42:18","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T17:42:18","slug":"russia-detains-senior-general-widening-military-purge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/14\/russia-detains-senior-general-widening-military-purge\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Detains Senior General, Widening Military Purge"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/14\/multimedia\/14russia-defense-tgmh\/14russia-defense-tgmh-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Russia Detains Senior General, Widening Military Purge\" title=\"Russia Detains Senior General, Widening Military Purge\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russian security agents detained a senior general early Tuesday, widening a purge of the country\u2019s sprawling Defense Ministry amid President Vladimir V. Putin\u2019s broader shake-up of his government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lt. Gen. Yuri Kuznetsov, who oversaw the ministry\u2019s personnel department, was detained on an accusation of \u201clarge-scale\u201d bribery, Russia\u2019s Investigative Committee, a federal law enforcement agency, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/sledcom_press\/13293\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">said in a statement on Tuesday.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His detention came after Mr. Putin unexpectedly <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/12\/world\/europe\/russia-putin-cabinet-war-shoigu.html\" title=\"\">removed<\/a> his long-serving defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/13\/world\/europe\/russia-defense-minister-ukraine-belousov.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">from his post and replaced him<\/a> with a member of his economic team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Prosecutors said General Kuznetsov received a bribe from \u201ccommercial interests\u201d between 2021 and 2023, when he worked on the protection of state secrets at the Armed Forces\u2019 General Staff. The prosecutors claimed that security agents discovered cash equivalent to $1 million and luxury items during a search of General Kuznetsov\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A career officer, General Kuznetsov worked on the General Staff for 13 years before assuming his post in the Defense Ministry in 2023.<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"imageblock-wrapper\">\n<figure class=\"img-sz-small css-1189og3 e1g7ppur0\" aria-label=\"media\" role=\"group\"><figcaption data-testid=\"photoviewer-children-caption\" class=\"css-1ybnr6m ewdxa0s0\"><span class=\"css-jevhma e13ogyst0\">A photo made available by the Russian Defense Ministry of Lt. Gen. Yuri Kuznetsov. <\/span><span class=\"css-1u46b97 e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit&#8230;<\/span><span><span aria-hidden=\"false\">Russian Defense Ministry, via Associated Press<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">General Kuznetsov is the second senior Russian defense official to be detained in the past month. A deputy defense minister, Timur Ivanov, was detained and charged in April with the same crime, \u201clarge-scale\u201d bribery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Ivanov was known for the extravagant lifestyle of his wife and was widely seen as a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Mr. Shoigu. Mr. Putin\u2019s broader reshuffle of senior security posts this week indicates a focus on improving the management of Russian military resources, in order to outlast Ukraine in a war of attrition. This focus on resource management could partly explain the government\u2019s attempts to show action against graft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry has long been widely perceived as a hotbed of corruption. Some analysts have said the systematic pilfering of state defense contracts was one of the reasons for the Russian Army\u2019s disastrous initial invasion of Ukraine in 2022, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2022\/12\/16\/world\/europe\/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html\" title=\"\">when nominally modernized divisions were sent into battle<\/a> with outdated and insufficient equipment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Russia, ultranationalist supporters of the war in Ukraine have blamed what they perceive as greed and aloofness of senior generals for heavy military losses and meager territorial gains.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Shoigu\u2019s chief rival, the ultranationalist warlord Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, last year seized on this popular discontent with senior command to launch a mutiny that came within 120 miles of Moscow, briefly shaking Mr. Putin\u2019s hold on power. (Mr. Prigozhin eventually backed down, and died several months later in a plane crash.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Prominent ultranationalist commentators have greeted the arrests of Mr. Ivanov and General Kuznetsov, as well as the demotion of Mr. Shoigu, with muted glee, suggesting high-level military corruption remains a galvanizing issue for the war\u2019s supporters, as well as a political threat to Mr. Putin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mikhail Zvinchuk, one of Russia\u2019s most-read military bloggers, wrote on Monday that he hoped Mr. Shoigu\u2019s demotion would lead to \u201ca comprehensive audit and overhaul of all financial models of the Defense Ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Another pro-war military blogger, Kirill Fedorov, who has half a million subscribers on Telegram, a messaging app, on Tuesday titled a video about General Kuznetsov\u2019s arrest \u201cIs it 1937 again?,\u201d a reference to Joseph Stalin\u2019s brutal purge of generals and other members of the Soviet elite.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/14\/world\/europe\/russia-detains-general-yuri-kuznetsov.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russian security agents detained a senior general early Tuesday, widening a purge of the country\u2019s sprawling Defense Ministry amid President Vladimir V. Putin\u2019s broader shake-up of his government. Lt. Gen. Yuri Kuznetsov, who oversaw the ministry\u2019s personnel department, was detained on an accusation of \u201clarge-scale\u201d bribery, Russia\u2019s Investigative Committee, a federal law enforcement agency, said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/14\/multimedia\/14russia-defense-tgmh\/14russia-defense-tgmh-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10226,1032,2198,12276,202,10650,50567],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50449,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50447\/revisions\/50449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}