Another top Russian defense official arrested in corruption case
The Russian authorities have arrested Vadim Shamarin, the head of the Main Directorate of Communications at the Ministry of Defense, for alleged involvement in bribery, the Investigative Committee has confirmed.
Lieutenant General Shamarin is the fourth senior Russian defense figure to have been arrested on criminal charges in the last two months.
The 53-year-old signals officer “is suspected of receiving a bribe on an especially large scale,” Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said on Thursday.
“According to the investigation, in the period from April 2016 to October 2023, Shamarin received a bribe from the general director of the ‘Telta’ Perm Telephone Plant, Alexey Vysokov, and the company’s chief accountant Elena Grishina, in the amount of 36 million rubles (approximately $400,000),” Petrenko said.
The 235th Garrison Military Court has ordered Shamarin to remain in custody pending trial. If found guilty, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Shamarin has served as the head of Russia’s Main Directorate of Communications since 2021. He is also a deputy to the chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov. Vysokov and Grishina also face criminal charges and are in custody.
Shamarin is not the first defense official in this post to be implicated in a criminal case. His predecessor Khalil Arslanov was accused in 2020 of embezzling 6.7 billion rubles ($74 million).
The arrest of Shamarin follows a string of similar cases in recent weeks. In late April, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested as part of a corruption case. In May, similar allegations were made against the head of the Main Personnel Directorate of the Defense Ministry, Yury Kuznetsov, and Ivan Popov, who once commanded the 58th Army in the Ukraine conflict.
