Here’s a spooky news item to start the day. From the Moscow Times:
Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said Wednesday that a group of naval officials had attempted to smuggle $18 million worth of anti-submarine missiles and aviation bombs to China.
“A few days ago we sent material to start criminal proceedings against Navy officials and some businessmen who brought 30 contraband anti-submarine missiles and 200 aviation bombs into Tajikistan for onward sale to China for $18 million,” Fridinsky told a meeting of prosecutors chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev.
Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo confirmed the incident.
It was unclear to whom the smugglers planned to sell the weapons.
Corruption within the Russian military has been a serious problem. From The Other Russia (discussing an interview with Prosecutor Frindinsky in Rossiyskaya Gazeta):
Over 400 Russian military officers were convicted of criminal offenses in 2008, army prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky reports in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper (Rus). The offending officers included 76 base commanders, and around 300 were senior staff, including 20 generals.
Fridinsky told the paper that the total cost from corruption in the Russian army was estimated at over two billion rubles ($56.8 or €44.1 million) in 2008. Two thirds of crimes involving corruption were committed by the officer corps, and crimes on the part of highly ranked officers increased by a third over the previous year. A large share of criminal acts likely remain unnoticed and unprosecuted.
Some recent scandals in the armed forces include a large-scale plot involving employees of the Ministry of Defense’s central office. The swindle, revealed in September, involved selling rocket fuel to companies at 40 times less than market value, listing it as unusable. The same bureaucrats would then buy back the propellant at the market rate. According to Fridinsky, this particular scheme cost the treasury some 430 million rubles ($12.2 or €9.5 million).
Given the shabby living conditions I’ve seen on at least one Russian military base, I can’t say I’m surprised at all the ‘entrepreneurial activity’.
But here’s the money quote: ‘It was unclear to whom the smugglers planned to sell the weapons.’
Who else would like to know the answer to that question? A show of hands, please.
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