A Moscow military court on Thursday sentenced former deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff Vadim Shamarin to seven years in a maximum-security prison on corruption charges.
Lieutenant-General Shamarin, who also headed the General Staff’s communications directorate, was arrested in May 2024 on charges of accepting 36 million rubles ($437,600) in bribes from a phone manufacturing plant in exchange for state contracts and “general patronage.”
Shamarin was one of several senior military officials arrested last year in what observers have described as a broader anti-corruption campaign within Russia’s Defense Ministry.
According to the Interfax news agency, his trial was held behind closed doors and without a full examination of evidence, as Shamarin had reached a plea deal with investigators.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said Shamarin was convicted of accepting two bribes and sentenced accordingly. In addition to his prison term, the court stripped him of his military rank and confiscated assets valued at over 35 million rubles ($425,500).
Prosecutors had requested a 12-year sentence and a fine of 107 million rubles ($1.3 million).
The Kremlin has denied that Shamarin’s arrest and others like it signal a sweeping purge of the military following last year’s dismissal of longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who had faced mounting criticism over Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
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