Personnel purges in Russian military: Putin's inner circle targeted

Both the corrupt entourage of Sergey Shoigu and the generals who did not meet the expectations of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin have suffered as a result of the personnel purges in the Ministry of Defense. What was the goal of the series of resignations?

Several groups of high-ranking military personnel have suffered as a result of the personnel purges in the Russian Ministry of Defense. The first to be “attacked” were people from Sergey Shoigu’s circle. Consequently, several generals who did not meet the Kremlin's expectations lost their positions.

However, the arrest of General Ivan Popov also deserves attention, as he, in contrast, enjoys high authority within the army but turned out to be too harsh in his conflict with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense.

As the Russian portal Meduza emphasizes, all these personnel reshuffles in the department responsible for Russian aggression on Ukraine are ultimately aimed at increasing the efficiency of the military machine before the next large-scale operation.

The series of high-level resignations within the Russian military provides an opportunity to summarize the first results of this purge. At the beginning of June, there were already five, clearly indicating a coordinated action. However, it appears that the arrests were carried out for various reasons.

At least three recent arrests are part of a purge among people close to Sergey Shoigu, who resigned as head of the Ministry of Defense.

In Russia, as in other similar regimes, changes in management personnel are often accompanied by corruption. For over 10 years, Shoigu and his circle have controlled one of the most lucrative financial sources - state defense expenditures.

The attractiveness of this asset lies in its incredible capacity for corruption. These are gigantic budgets: between 2013 and 2023, almost 35 trillion rubles were spent on “National Defense”. Most of these amounts were managed by Shoigu's personnel.

As a result, President Putin transferred Shoigu to another high position, thus personally providing him with immunity while leaving his team unprotected.

At the end of April, Putin's first “victim” was Timur Ivanov, who served as the director of finances related to the construction of facilities for the Ministry of Defense. In Ivanov's case, several other people belonging to this chain of connections were also detained.

The second to leave was Yuri Kuznetsov, who had been head of the ministry's personnel department for the past year and previously headed the Department of State Secrecy Protection in the General Staff.

Among Shoigu's fallen associates is Vladimir Verteletskiy, who worked in the ministry's government procurement department, overseeing government contracts related to digitization. Compared to Ivanov and Kuznetsov, Verteletskiy appears to be a significantly less important figure – he was merely a department manager.

Note: 35 trillion rubles is roughly equivalent to 600 billion CAD based on common exchange rates. The time mentioned is already in Eastern Time.