Since his invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s war effort has been strongly condemned by high-level incompetence and corruption in the Russian military.
The need for change came to light when his troops were bogged down around Ukraine’s capital, Kiev. Months later, when they were forced outside the city of Kharkov, expectations for a shakeup grew. Putin seemed compelled to respond after mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin led his troops toward Moscow and complained about corruption and incompetence at the top of the Russian military.
But the Russian president has each time avoided any major public steps that might be seen as validating criticism, keeping his defense minister and top generals in place amid the storm while shuffling battlefield commanders and making other lower-level moves.
Now that the battlefield crisis appears to have passed and Prigozhin has died, the Russian leader has decided to take action, replacing the defense minister for the first time in more than a decade and allowing the arrest of several corrupt defense ministers.
The moves usher in the biggest overhaul of the Russian Defense Ministry since the invasion began and confirm Putin’s tendency to avoid making big, reactive changes at the height of a crisis, instead making less dramatic changes of his own choosing. It’s time to take action.
“We have to understand that Putin is a stubborn and inflexible person,” said Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter who now lives outside Russia. “He believed that reacting too quickly to changing circumstances was a sign of weakness.”
Experts say the timing of Putin’s recent actions is likely a sign that he is more confident about his battlefield prospects in Ukraine and his grip on political power as he begins his fifth term as president.
Russian forces are making gains in Ukraine, seizing areas around Kharkiv and the Donbas region, while Ukraine struggles with delayed U.S. aid and stretched ammunition and personnel reserves. Senior Kremlin officials are optimistic.
“They may think that the situation within the military is stable enough to punish some people in the military leadership for their previous mistakes,” said Michael Kovman, a Russian military expert and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Demands for change at the top of the Russian military have been pent-up since the early days of the invasion, when rumors emerged that Russian soldiers were fighting the war without proper food and equipment and were taking orders from irresponsible military leaders died.
Last year’s failed uprising led by Prigozhin sparked a surge of anger.
An unlikely messenger, Mr. Prigozhin was a caterer-turned-warlord who made his fortune from state contracts. But he made ordinary Russians and the wider public aware of high-level corruption, issuing expletive-laden remarks about then-Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu and Russia’s top military officer, Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov. Long story. At one point, Prigozhin photographed himself in front of a pile of dead Russian fighters and denounced senior officials for “getting fat” in their wooden offices.
A person close to the Ministry of Defense said that the problems that had been worsening for more than a decade in the Ministry of Defense under Shoigu have exploded, and the people are eager for revival.
The Russian leader now appears to be targeting the very officials Mr Prigozhin has been attacking.
The first sign came last month with the arrest of Shoigu’s protege, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was in charge of military construction projects, and Russian authorities accused him of taking huge bribes . He denies wrongdoing. Mr Ivanov had previously come to the attention of the Alexei Navalny Anti-Corruption Foundation because of his lavish lifestyle with his wife, which included chartering a yacht on the French Riviera.
Then, just this month, just days after Putin began his new presidential term, the Kremlin announced that he had replaced Shoigu and selected one of his long-time economic advisers, Andrei R. Belousov. . Belousov) as the new Minister of Defense. Shoigu was moved to head the Russian Security Council, where he still has access to the president but has little direct control over the funds.
“If you want to win a war, at least in theory, large-scale corruption can affect the outcome on the battlefield, and that’s not what you want,” said Maria Nyqvist, deputy director of Russian and Eurasian studies at the Swedish Defense Research Center. mechanism.
However, Nyqvist called high-level corruption in Russia “a feature, not a flaw.”
“Corruption is a tool to gain influence, but it can also be used against you at any given time, depending on whether you say the wrong thing at the wrong time or make the wrong decision at the wrong time,” she said explain. “So as long as there’s a reasonable explanation acceptable to the public, you can be ousted.”
Engqvist said the changes also raise questions about how long General Gerasimov will remain in his role as Ukraine’s chief of general staff and top battlefield commander.
Defense Department arrests have gathered pace this month, with four more senior generals and Defense Department officials detained on corruption charges. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov denied on Thursday that the arrests represented a “campaign.”
Corruption charges against senior Defense Ministry officials have been accompanied by promises of greater economic and social benefits for rank-and-file soldiers, in an apparent attempt to boost morale and appease populist critics.
In his first speech since being nominated as defense minister, Belousov described his plans to cut bureaucracy and improve veterans’ access to health care and other social services. On Thursday, the speaker of Russia’s lower house, Vyacheslav V. Volodin, and the finance minister, Anton G. Siluanov, voiced support for exempting Ukrainian fighters from income tax increases proposal.
Carnegie senior fellow Dara Massikot said top arrests are unlikely to eradicate massive corruption in Russia’s military establishment, but may make top officials think twice before committing large-scale thefts, at least for a while .
“It will put a chill in the system and give everyone pause as they try to figure out new standards of acceptable behaviour,” Ms Massicot said.
As well as sending an anti-corruption message, at least one of the arrests appeared to be an attempt to settle a political score.
Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, a top Russian commander who led troops to thwart a Ukrainian counteroffensive, scolded the Russian military leadership in a widely publicized recording after he was fired last year. He was arrested on Tuesday on fraud charges, state news agency TASS reported. His lawyer said he denied wrongdoing.
“The bottom line is that the war exposed many different problems—corruption, incompetence, and overt expressions of disobedience—that the leadership felt needed to address,” said Samuel Charlap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. question. “Now is a good time to do this precisely because there are no short-term serious risks on the battlefield. “
