Former Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov has been arrested on corruption charges, Russian law enforcement authorities announced on Friday, adding that the army general was moved to a detention center in Moscow.
Bulgakov, 69, is the seventh high-ranking Defense Ministry official to have been arrested since April in an apparent purge of the military's top ranks as the invasion of Ukraine drags on.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said “Bulgakov has been taken into custody” as part of a corruption probe. The Federal Security Service (FSB) said he was placed in the notorious Lefortovo pre-trial detention center in Moscow.
Neither the FSB nor the Investigative Committee specified what kind of corruption charges had been pressed against the general in their brief statements.
Bulgakov served as deputy defense minister for administrative issues between 2008 and 2022 and oversaw military logistics before being replaced in September 2022, the first major military reshuffle since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of that year.
The state-run TASS news agency, citing his case materials, reported later on Friday that Bulgakov is accused of large-scale embezzlement — charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Law enforcement agencies told TASS that Bulgakov oversaw the creation of a system to supply low-quality food rations to Russian troops at inflated prices. Three other people reportedly involved in the scheme were arrested in April, according to sources cited by the RIA Novosti news agency.
A number of senior defense ministry officials have been arrested in recent months on various charges ranging from bribery to abuse of power, an apparent military purge that began with the arrest in April of Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was seen as an ally of former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
In May, President Vladimir Putin sacked Shoigu, who faced accusations of mishandling the war in Ukraine. He was replaced by economist Andrei Belousov, who, like his predecessor, had no military experience before taking on the role of defense minister.
Earlier this week, Russian media reported that the head of the Defense Ministry’s construction company, Andrei Belkov, was arrested on abuse of power charges.
Investigators were said to be scrutinizing Belkov’s contracts, personal earnings and other connections during his time as head of the military construction company, which was sanctioned by the United States in 2023 over its involvement in the reconstruction of occupied Mariupol.
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