Pavel Popov. Photo: social media
Russia’s former deputy defence minister General Pavel Popov has been detained on suspicion of corruption, a spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee announced on Thursday.
Popov, who is the latest senior Russian military officer to be arrested since Sergei Shoigu was replaced as defence minister in May, has been under investigation for corruption during his time overseeing the maintenance of Patriot Park, a military theme park outside Moscow that’s been dubbed Russia’s “military Disneyland”.
Popov is alleged to have got construction companies contracted for work on the park to build his own private residence in the Moscow region city of Krasnogorsk between 2021–2024.
The case against Popov is the third investigation into a senior defence official associated with Patriot Park, and follows the detention of former park director Vyacheslav Akhmedov and the former deputy head of the Defence Ministry’s Innovations Department, Major General Vladimir Shesterov, on suspicion of corruption earlier this month.
Popov, who was dismissed from military service by Vladimir Putin in June, is now one of at least a dozen high-ranking Russian military officials who, since April, have been implicated in the largest wave of corruption scandals affecting the Russian military and defence establishment in years. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison, according to Russian state-run news agency TASS.
