Colonel General implicated in billions of dollars in corruption deals

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The detention of a military leader of such a high rank as the deputy chief of the General Staff was carried out at the appropriate level. Khalil Arslanov was "taken" by the FSB military counterintelligence officers. The general is charged with a fraud in the amount of 6, 7 billion rubles. Was he alone in this criminal scheme? Or is it just the top of the "military mafia", which is as invincible as the entire Russian army?

An unprecedented event in recent years took place in the Armed Forces - an entire colonel-general was arrested.

It would seem, what connection could there be between the already deceased General of the Army Konstantin Kobets and the current defendant in the criminal case, Colonel General Khalil Arslanov? Both are out of communication. And if for the first the post of the Chief of the Signal Troops of the USSR Ministry of Defense - Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, then in the rank of Colonel General, became intermediate (Kobets eventually rose to the post of State Secretary, Deputy Defense Minister), then for Arslanov a similar position and rank (as part of Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation) was the last in a military career. The connection is still in the commonality of the charges brought against the generals-signalers - corruption and receiving bribes on an especially large scale.

Kobets before the current detention of Arslanov was the highest-ranking prisoner of the Ministry of Defense. He was put on a bunk, despite his closeness to President Boris Yeltsin, the rank of army general and the post of deputy minister. It is logical that for banal fraud and stolen a couple of million we are not sent to jail - they beat them on the hands, pretend to be, well, they can send them into honorable resignation.

In Russia, "high-ranking officials" can fall into special disfavor in two cases - either a person claims power, or does not divide. Konstantin Kobets at the time of his arrest in May 1997 was named the most likely candidate for the post of defense minister. Marshal Igor Sergeev then became the head of the military department. There, on the military Olympus, their intrigues.

Arslanov Khalil Abdukhalimovich did not apply for higher posts in the Ministry of Defense, and even more so in commercial structures. Arslanov was quite satisfied with the last position, which, according to the investigation, was not only prestigious, but also very "lucrative". And the sum of 6, 7 billion rubles presented to him under the article "Fraud" may not be the only one in a series of thefts of the chief military signalman - if the court proves, of course. Well, he was not the only one who piddled the funds of the defense budget in such volumes? There were, one might assume, both accomplices and performers, and there were those who received decent kickbacks from these "deals". Did he really stop sharing at some point?

Recall that a criminal case on embezzlement of funds during the execution of a state contract for the maintenance and repair of special military equipment was initiated back in 2013. That is, a "bell" sounded - a kind of warning. However, this did not affect Arslanov at that time - in December 2013, he was even promoted, from the deputy chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces for communications, he was transferred to the chiefs of the Main Directorate of Communications of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

It could seem that that episode was forgotten and the clouds over Khalil Abdukhalimovich dispelled. But no! Six years later, in October 2019, Arslanov was charged with major fraud and a criminal case was initiated under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. There was another month's hiatus before the court seized his property. The charge followed another month later.

The final point with the detention by the FSB military counterintelligence officers took place on February 7. This is already a "point of no return" for Arslanov, from where the path back to the command chair is completely closed. As Comrade Saakhov from the "Caucasian Captive" said: "Now I have only two ways out of this house: either I take her to the registry office, or she leads me to the prosecutor."

Other defendants in the criminal case were the former head of Voentelecom Alexander Davydov, his deputy Oleg Savitsky and adviser Dmitry Semiletov, as well as the head of the order department for improving the technical basis of the control system of the Russian Armed Forces, Pavel Kutakhov, and the head of the first department of the Main Communications Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, Alexander Ogloblin … All of them had previously pleaded guilty to fraud, including the purchase of communications equipment worth more than 6.5 billion rubles, having testified against the Deputy Chief of the General Staff. Arslanov himself claims that the criminal case against him is an attempt to discredit the entire leadership of the Armed Forces.

“The mafia in the Ministry of Defense has not gone anywhere, it has existed there for a long time. The investigation has reason to believe that Arslanov is the "godfather" of one of its areas, in this case, very profitable in terms of the corruption of the signal troops, "one of the retired officers of the central apparatus of the Ministry of Defense told the newspaper VZGLYAD. - Usually, thefts, even if they are detected, try to hush up and shut up. Here's what now, for example, you hear about high-profile revelations about the clothing and food service of the Rear Services of the Armed Forces? These criminal cases are still hanging on the Ministry of Defense, but nothing has been heard about them."

What happened to the head of the food department, Colonel Alexei Berezhny, who was taken into custody in 2017 after he was convicted of taking a bribe of 368 million rubles? Or his accomplice from the same department - Colonel Alexander Vakulin, who was caught on a "small thing" of 20 million rubles while fulfilling a contract for the supply of special equipment to canteens of military units? Nothing was heard about specific dates.

With the means of communication, there was also something to profit from, and this is by no means the sale of TA-43 telephone sets, here it is necessary to take it more broadly. And the company "Voentelecom", which was used for various schemes to overstate the cost of products and receive double payment for the provision of services when concluding contracts with the Ministry of Defense, appears in episodes of the criminal case for a reason.

A new stage in the development of new communication systems in the army, including TOS and ACS systems (technical support for communication and automated control systems), was to begin after 2008. The problems then, during the so-called Five-Day War, the operation to force Georgia to peace, came to light with all their catastrophic nature. There was no connection.

What can I say if then the commander of the 58th Army, Lieutenant General Khrulev, contacted his headquarters in Vladikavkaz using a satellite phone, which he asked journalists.

Never mind! Back on October 20, 2019, on the eve of the centenary of the communications troops, the deputy head of the Main Communications Directorate of the RF Armed Forces, Major General Alexander Rubis, stated in an interview with the departmental newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda that not everything is going well with communications in the army. “The goals of the reform in terms of the TPS and ACS system were to optimize the composition of military repair agencies and increase the efficiency of their work with the involvement of industrial enterprises. However, as a result of the reform, this goal was not achieved, since it was of a non-systemic nature. The planned development of the TOS and ACS systems and the restoration of the reduced repair units of the communications troops began only after 2013”.

Do you feel the thought? The general admits that before Sergei Shoigu came to the post of Defense Minister, huge amounts of money for communications in the army went to no one knows where. In the pocket of any generals? It is not excluded.

Now, of course, everything has changed, well, under Shoigu! But if you look at the troops, the means of communication there remain the weak link in military support. Is that with the exception of the Russian contingent in Syria and a number of other units of the Armed Forces, mostly for special purposes. What role Colonel-General Arslanov played in this remains to be clarified by the investigation and the court.