Deputy Chief of the General Staff General Vadim Shamarin is suspected of receiving a bribe of 36 million rubles

The Investigative Committee confirmed that Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, was arrested in connection with a case of bribery (Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code).

According to the investigation, Shamarin, who headed the Main Communications Directorate of the Armed Forces, received 36 million rubles from a Defense Ministry contractor over seven years (from April 2016 to October 2023). The bribes were intended for "increasing the volume of products supplied under government contracts for the needs of the Russian Defense Ministry and general patronage."

Employees of the Perm telephone plant Telta — CEO Alexey Vysokov and chief accountant Elena Grishina — were arrested on suspicion of bribery. On its website, the company calls itself "the largest manufacturer of telephone equipment and communications equipment in Russia," including for the military (.pdf ).

Vysokov and Grishina, as well as the former head of the enterprise Igor Morozov, were arrested back in July 2023 in a fraud case.

In late April , Timur Ivanov , the deputy minister of defense, was arrested in a bribery case. In May, Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov , the head of the ministry's personnel department, and former commander of the 58th Army Ivan Popov were sent to pretrial detention.

At the same time, Putin dismissed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and appointed Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov to his post.