Another top Russian military official investigated for corruption
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained former Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov as part of a corruption investigation. The development comes after a number of top military officials were arrested following a major reshuffling at the Defense Ministry.
In a statement on Friday, the FSB said that Bulgakov, 69, who oversaw logistical support for the Russian army between 2010 and 2022, had been put in a pre-trial detention center in Moscow as part of “the initiated criminal corruption case.”
The agency added that law enforcement is seeking “to establish the causes and conditions that contributed to illegal activities.” It did not say what exactly Bulgakov is suspected of.
During his time in office, Bulgakov oversaw the construction of a major railway line bypassing Ukraine, which was opened for traffic in 2017. A year earlier, he was awarded the Hero of Russia title – the nation’s highest honor. He also played a major role in organizing the logistics of the Russian military contingent in Syria.
However, in September 2022, a few months after the start of the Ukraine conflict, the Defense Ministry announced that Bulgakov had been removed from his post to “take up another position,” without providing further details. He was later appointed as inspector general of the Defense Ministry.
The FSB announcement comes as several senior Russian defense officials have been arrested in recent months on suspicion of corruption. They included Vadim Shamarin, the head of the Main Directorate of Communications, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, and Yury Kuznetsov, the head of the Main Personnel Directorate of the Defense Ministry. Another person of interest was Ivan Popov, who once commanded the 58th Army in the Ukraine conflict.
Most of those arrests came after Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu with Andrey Belousov, an economist who previously served as first deputy prime minister. Shoigu was then appointed secretary of the Russian Security Council.
