Russian general ''had fallen'' amid a wider reshuffle of the military's top ranks PHOTO

The spokeswoman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Svetlana Petrenko, said that the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia has initiated criminal proceedings against Kuznetsov and that he is suspected of receiving a large bribe, reports Interfax.

Kuznetsov was detained. He was the head of the Main Personnel Administration of the Ministry of Defense of Russia and holds the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Russia's state-run TASS agency reported Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov, who served as the head of the 8th Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces from 2010 to 2023, was detained "on suspicion of criminal activity." His workplace and residence had been searched.

The investigation established that Kuznetsov in the period 2021-2023, as the head of the Eighth Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, "received bribes from representatives of commercial structures for carrying out certain actions in their favor".

During the search, more than 100 million rubles, gold coins, collector's watches and luxury items were confiscated from the suspect, Petrenko said.

At the end of last month, Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia, Timur Ivanov, was arrested on charges of accepting a bribe of one billion rubles.

Ivanov, who was in charge of the military-construction complex, is accused of having committed a criminal offense when he came into contact with third parties in order to receive bribes on a particularly large scale, in the form of providing services while performing work for the needs of the ministry.