President Vladimir Putin has continued his cull of senior security and law enforcement officials, dismissing ten Interior Ministry, Investigative Committee and Federal Penitentiary Service generals on March 9.
The order, published on the government's official information website, gave no clear explanation for the firings, the RBC news agency reported.
Four of the generals were Interior
Ministry officials in the Volga federal district and the Samara,
Nizhny Novgorod and Vologda regions. One headed of ministry's
university in Moscow. Two generals came from the Investigative Committee —
one from Primorsky Krai and the other from the national headquarters. The list also includes three
penitentiary service generals.
Following the announcement, Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian security services, wrote on Twitter that the firings were part of "the usual churn," rather than a larger purge.
In February, Putin dismissed 16 generals from the Interior Ministry, the Emergency Services Ministry and the Investigative Committee. The move sparked speculation that the Russian president was engaging in a purge of law enforcement and security officials.
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