President Dmitry Medvedev proceeded with the overhaul of the Interior Ministry, sacking 10 police generals and reappointing 22 others, the Kremlin reported on its web site Tuesday.
Six of the fired officers were heads of the ministry's higher education institutions nationwide, and three others served in its audit and inspection departments.
The Kremlin did not give any explanations for the changes, but a ministry representative told The Moscow Times that the educators were dismissed due to reorganization of the police college system, while the other four had reached the mandatory retirement age.
Among the 22 generals reappointed Tuesday were heads of police departments in 10 regions, including the Vladimir, Chelyabinsk, Magadan, Omsk and Novgorod regions and the Jewish autonomous region, as well as police chiefs of the Southern, Volga and Siberian federal districts.
A police reform, introduced by Medvedev, has been ongoing since March. The reform, intended to improve the notoriously corrupt and inefficient agency, includes plans to trim by June some 200,000 officers from the force, which currently stands at 1.2 million.
Staff cuts will be done based on re-evaluation tests for all officers, including top brass, with the number of police generals set to go down from 427 to 340.
Medvedev said last month that a commission evaluating senior police officers has proposed retaining 145 of the 179 officers examined so far. He named no names at the time, but fired 22 and reappointed 19 more police generals over the weekend.
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