A former senior Russian defence official has been arrested and charged with corruption in the latest high-profile incident in an ongoing purge within the country’s military top brass.
Dmitry Bulgakov, who was a deputy defence minister in charge of military logistics for almost 15 years until he was dismissed in September 2022, was detained by the FSB security service on Friday and placed in the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow.
He was widely blamed for the Russian army’s logistical failures during the early months of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, which left troops severely undersupplied and stalled Moscow’s advances.
Bulgakov, who is the recipient of several top military and civilian awards, including the Hero of Russia award, the country’s highest honour, was one of the longest-serving defence officials.
The purge began on 23 April with the shock arrest of Timur Ivanov, another veteran deputy defence minister. Then, in the span of several weeks, four other top defence officials were arrested on corruption charges, marking the most significant crackdown in the defence ministry in decades.
Vladimir Putin in the process also dismissed his longtime defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, replacing him with the technocrat economist Andrei Belousov,
The shake-up is largely seen by observers as an attempt by Putin to reduce corruption in the defence ministry and streamline military production for a long war against Ukraine that could largely be decided by industrial output.
The arrests also highlight the growing influence of the FSB, which is largely responsible for the recent developments.
Moscow has previously played down suggestions of a crackdown within the defence ministry. “The fight against corruption is consistent work,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in May. “It is not a campaign, it is constantly ongoing work.”
