President Dmitry Medvedev has replaced several senior military officials, including the commander of the ground forces, amid a corruption investigation that calls for more dismissals.
Medvedev has dismissed General Vladimir Boldyrev, head of the ground forces, because he reached the retirement age of 55 and replaced him with Colonel General Alexander Postnikov, chief of the Siberian Military District, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Lieutenant General Vladimir Chirkin has replaced Postnikov as chief of the Siberian Military District.
Lieutenant General Alexander Galkin, meanwhile, has replaced Colonel General Sergei Makarov as chief of the North Caucasus Military District, which is responsible for any federal military operations in Chechnya.
In the Leningrad Military District, Major General Ivan Buvaltsev has replaced Lieutenant General Andrei Tretyak as first deputy chief, and Tretyak has been appointed chief of the main operations directorate of the General Staff, replacing Major General Sergei Surovkin.
Medvedev is also considering dismissing the chief of the 58th Army in the North Caucasus Military District, Anatoly Khrulyov, who will turn 55 in June, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
Meanwhile, an investigation carried out by the Defense Ministry and the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office on orders from Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has revealed corruption in the ground forces, the air force, the airborne forces and the railroad forces, Interfax reported. Ministry investigators have recommended that a number of senior officers implicated in the inquiry be dismissed, the report said.
The government lost more than 2.5 billion rubles ($84.7 million) as a result of military corruption last year, said Alexander Nikitin, a senior official in the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office.
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