Putin's purge continues after another top war general is detained

Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, Head of the Main Communications Directorate and Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (Picture: PNP/east2west news)

Another top Russian general has been detained by Putin’s secret service in the latest purge by the president.

Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, 52, is deputy chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces and serves as head of communications for the armed forces.

Despite his top position, his homes have been raided by security services, according to Telegram.

Shamarin is the latest in Vladimir Putin’s purge, after deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov was detained and handcuffed by FSB officers as he went to visit his GP.

‌He is now remanded in custody and faces charges of accepting bribes totalling more than £10 million.

‌The defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has also been replaced with a civilian economist Andrey Belousov who has been ordered to root our corruption.

Another Lieutenant General, Yuri Kuznetsov, was hauled from his bed by heavily armed counterintelligence officers in balaclavas who smashed their way into his mansion.

‌He is in charge of the ministry’s main personnel department but his detention was linked to his previous role guarding military state secrets.

‌Separately, Major General Ivan Popov, 49, a hero among ordinary soldiers whose call sign was Spartacus, was held this week.

Shamarin’s homes have been raided by security services (Picture: MOD/east2west news)

‌He evidently faces punishment for brutal criticism of Putin’s high command.

‌He said last year: ‘Our army couldn’t be destroyed by the Ukrainian Army.

‌’Our own senior commander hit us from the rear.

‌’Treacherously and vilely decapitating the army at the most difficult and tense moment.’

His family say he has been ‘setup’ with fraud charges which are bogus.

Shamarin was a graduate of the Novocherkassk Higher Military Command School of Communications and the Military Academy of Communications.

He was awarded the medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree.

Earlier this year he warned that over 120 countries are creating ‘weapons for information warfare capable of disrupting government and military leadership, as well as disorganising and disorienting the general population, and sowing mass panic’.

He told the 2024 Infoforum: ‘That is why our preoccupation with fully ensuring information security within the framework of implementing strategic tasks and carrying out promising information projects is quite understandable.’

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