Corruption on rise in Russian armed forces – military prosecutor | Top Russian news and analysis online | ‘RIA Novosti’ newswire: “The Russian armed forces and security troops has seen a sharp rise in corruption-related crimes this year, Russia’s Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said on Friday.
‘As the general crime rate in the military forces fell by 16% … the number [of attempted corruption cases] has risen by 10% in the past two months,’ Fridinsky said during a meeting of security officials.
He did not elaborate on the reasons of the rise in corruption crimes this year. But his remarks suggested that a growth of corruption-related crimes was also typical for 2009.
Fridinsky said that last year the number of revealed crimes of fraud grew by 50%. He also said the number of corruption crimes was also rising along with embezzlement and abuse of power.
‘In the past year, 534 army officers, including several high-ranking ones, were convicted for crimes connected to their duties. Military prosecutors have revealed around 7,500 violations of law in abuse of power, over 2,000 officials were punished, 540 of them were officially warned,’ Fridinsky said.”