A former top Russian Defense Ministry official was sentenced to 19 years in prison for his role in a snowballing, politically charged corruption investigation that has rattled the top levels of Russia’s military amid the war on Ukraine.
Pavel Popov, a former general who served as deputy defense minister until he was sacked by President Vladimir Putin following his arrest two years ago, is one of at least four other former military officials who have been under investigation for embezzlement and bribery.
Russian news agencies said Popov was also stripped of his rank and military honors and fined 85 million rubles ($1.1 million). He did not attend the hearing at the Moscow military court due to health reasons, the reports said.
The case that prosecutors built against Popov stemmed from a project called Patriot Park, a Moscow-region military theme park that opened in 2016 and includes displays of Soviet and Russian hardware and exhibitions.
Prosecutors accused Popov of siphoning budget funds meant for the park and forcing contractors to build a private home and a bathhouse, among other things. He was also accused of receiving millions of rubles in bribes from head of Bamstroyput, the construction company involved in the Patriot Park project.
All the officials who face criminal investigations, including Popov, worked at the Defense Ministry under the leadership of Sergei Shoigu, who was pushed out as defense minister in May 2024 and moved over to head the Security Council, a Kremlin advisory board chaired by Putin and made up of top military, law enforcement, and security agency officials.
The bribery and other criminal allegations that the other officials face also stem from Bamstroyput, which Russian news reports say was a major contractor for the Emergency Situations Ministry when it was headed by Shoigu.
Last year, Timur Ivanov was sentenced to 13 years in prison on embezzlement charges. Last month, Ruslan Tsalikov, another former deputy defense minister and a longtime Shoigu ally dating back to Shoigu’s 21-year stint at the Emergency Situations Ministry, was arrested on corruption charges.
Shoigu was frequently criticized for his leadership during the all-out war on Ukraine, which was launched in February 2022.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the St. Petersburg restaurateur who built a formidable private mercenary force, was unsparing in his criticism of Shoigu. Two months after Priogzhin staged an abortive mutiny in 2023, was one of the loudest critics of the war’s conduct. Hehe died in a plane crash widely believed to be an assassination.
Shoigu is a longtime confidant of Putin. For that reason, veteran Kremlin watchers say it is highly unlikely he would face substantial blowback or criminal liability from the prosecutions of his former subordinates.
