Kremlin denies they are purging military generals as another is arrested | DW News

Kremlin denies they are purging military generals as another is arrested | DW News

the Russian media have been reporting the arrest of the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff on suspicion of taking bribes a military Court in Moscow ordered the Detention of leftenant General Vadim shamarin for two months while investigations proceed it’s the latest in a series of arrests of senior Russian military leaders that began in April although the Kremlin denies that a purge of military officials is taking place K sham is visiting fellow where the wider Europe program at the European Council on Foreign Relations he focuses on Russia’s civil military relations Russian domestic politics and policymaking he joins us from vus welcome to DW Vadim shamarin is the fourth senior Russian military commander to be arrested or moved in recent months is this a purge um good evening hello thanks for having me this is a purge but uh the question remains what kind of purge whether it’s political or polic oriented in my view it shows that Putin is really into improving Russia’s military capabilities and the new Minister of Defense needs to update his team both within the ministry and the general staff and this is what we are seeing now and so what do we know about the corruption that leftenant General shamarin is alleged to have been involved in oh actually this case is still quite unclear because what we’ve seen from Russia’s independent investigative journalists they basically say that he his wife wife owns an expensive car of around $100,000 and Two Flats to be honest by Russian standards this is nothing this is completely normal for um for military official of such a high rank actually it’s even a bit low you would expect that others would own at least a house or Chalet somewhere and uh this person this General hasn’t owned anything like that so in my view actually in the case of this General uh this is more about uh clearing the cleaning the general stuff from uh previous military commanders under previous Minister Shu andoun the freeing space for the future military leaders that would come up under Minister bosv okay so there there have also been corruption charges against the deputy defense uh Minister and leftenant general Yuri ketov who is head of the defense ministry’s Personnel directorate so this this new broom really is sweeping quite clean what do we know about the charges against them oh yes absolutely actually I would just say that it’s it doesn’t matter much what are some private charges against individuals because in Russia as an autocratic country it’s quite easy to you know to invent or to create a criminal case against any officials because the system is designed in a way that if you’re are really high high ranking official you deal with a lot of funds Public public money and also you have some executive power so whenever you sign off on a special document or a procurement document more or less this sort of gives gives the investigators or Federal Security Service a reason to go after you once they need it this is how the Russian political system functions okay but in in a A system that from the outside appears to be as notoriously kleptocratic as Russia if they jail you for corruption does that mean that you’ve been too greedy or that you’re you’re just stealing from the wrong people it can actually mean both but uh they are greedy uh most of them are greedy those who are in top of the in the top ashelin but of course once this decision is made to put someone in jail this means they went against someone whom they should have been uh Gone against so this means they are out of power and pu personally now what’s happening with the ministry of Defense I’m 100% sure that Putin is personally aware of this and he sanctioned this campaign against military leaders so tell us about the man said to be behind uh this Russia’s new defense minister Andre belousov who’s not a military man as would normally be expected but an economist mhm actually I I would start with that actually Putin was the one who began this uh tradition of appointing civilian official to the position of the Minister of Defense basically since 2001 when Minister ianov was appointed but speaking about B B I would say that he comes from a privileged family his uh dad raro was in the Soviet a he was behind the casan reforms economic reforms of 1965 him himself Andre beloso himself is an academic policy Economist he’s been working on Russia’s economic reforms since late 90s early since late 1980s early 1990s is also well known for being really uh religious like Orthodox Christian religious but uh around from since since 2006 he’s been in the federal government or the presidential Administration he famously predicted the global financial crisis of 2008 back in 2005 so 3 years before the uh the crisis started and uh in 2013 he joined the presidential Administration he became the uh Aid of Vladimir Putin for example under his economic tenure uh Russia’s positions in the doing business Global ranking moved from 123 to the 28th position so he shows himself as a very capable technocratic Minister and economic official who can achieve um public policy objectives so I think it gives um a lot this brings a lot of support to him from Vladimir Putin who thinks that now especially when Russia spends more than 7% of the GDP on the defense industrial complex and the military that this person can manage such a huge amount of money more efficiently can potentially bring reforms to the Russian military okay I’m glad you you you you made that last point because I I I wanted to see if if you could draw a line between this defense Ministry clear out and Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine which has been nowhere near the lightning success that was hoped for uh in uh in Moscow two years ago yeah absolutely uh first the Russian military wasn’t prepared for the war they uh well they started I think they originally really planned what they call a special military operations but after a couple of months it turned out to be a global a regional War of Attrition and the military was not ready for this kind of task and despite uh the realization of these failur under Minister Shu the military command also was too slow and too ineffective to adjusting the to the needs uh of you know to the needs of the Kremlin in Ukraine and after this presidential election Putin despite being fully you know undemocratic and unfair Putin managed to consolidate the elites and now he has powers to change top officials within his government and of course the ministry of Defense when the country is conducting such a large scale War is one of the most powerful figures in in the Russian political system okay but I must say please go ahead and but I must say this does not guarantee uh increasing combat Effectiveness in Ukraine because in the in Russia the military effect depends on Military generals and now we are only seeing how they remove some of the military generals what remains to be seen is whom they’re going to appoint okay so pulling all these threads together sum up for for us if you can appearer into the mind of Vladimir Putin and guess what mission he gave his new defense minister they definitely want to increase and expand domestic production of armaments and Equipment they do want to increase the military skills especially in the sphere’s command and control and they want to improve the operation planning against Ukraine also another foreign policy objective because Russia is a uh is officially saying that they are at war with West with the and NATO I I wouldn’t exclude an option that they’re also preparing for the wor worst case scenarios of potentially expanding the conflict I think all these scenarios are somewhere there in the Kremlin and they consider it seriously thank you so much for guiding us through that so clearly Carol shamier from the European Council on Foreign Relations thank you for hearing me

Russian media have been reporting the arrest of the army’s deputy chief of staff on suspicion of taking bribes.

A military court in Moscow ordered the detention of Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin for two months, while investigations proceed. It’s the latest in a series of arrests of senior Russian military leaders that began in April – although the Kremlin denies that a purge of military officials is taking place.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:27 Kirikk Shamiev, European Council on Foreign Relations

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/deutschewelleenglish?sub_confirmation=1

For more news go to: http://www.dw.com/en/
Follow DW on social media:
►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deutschewellenews/
►Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwnews
►Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwnews
►Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dwnews_hangout
Für Videos in deutscher Sprache besuchen Sie: https://www.youtube.com/dwdeutsch