The anti-corruption cleanup continues at the Ministry of Defense. General arrested on suspicion of bribery by military court Vadim Shamarin – Head of the Main Communications Directorate, Deputy Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. How does he live?

What is known about the case of General Shamarin

The head of the Main Communications Directorate of the RF Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, was brought to the Main Military Investigation Directorate of the Investigative Committee for questioning. Rumors about investigative actions against the military official began at the beginning of the week.

The general was arrested for a period of two months on suspicion of receiving a bribe on an especially large scale (Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country)). Shamarin became the fourth high-ranking Defense Ministry officer detained since the beginning of spring. The case was heard in the 235th Garrison Military Court – it was the same court that made the arrest decision. Like his predecessors, the general faces up to 15 years in prison.

Sources of the Rybar telegram channel link Shamarin’s case with an audit of the accounting department of the Patriot park near Moscow, which is supervised by Deputy Minister of Defense Pavel Popov, as well as an audit of the K-Technologies company, which is carried out by the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country). The company, with a registered capital of almost 25 billion rubles, is responsible for computers, screens and even the famous multimedia globe in the atrium of the National Defense Management Center of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country). It seems that the list of persons involved in criminal cases among officials of the Ministry of Defense remains open.

Shamarin is also not the first head of the Main Communications Directorate to fall into the hands of Themis – five years ago, charges of fraud were brought against his predecessor, General Khalil Arslanov. The latter was charged with two counts of particularly large fraud totaling about 6.7 billion rubles. According to investigators, Arslanov stole funds during the execution of a government contract for the maintenance and repair of special military equipment.

What military bloggers and experts write about Shamarin’s arrest

The Gray Zone Telegram channel, which is associated with the structures of the late head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, writes that

“even 15 years in prison in this case is nothing, since the quality of communication, or rather the lack thereof, from the first days was one of the biggest problems in the Northern Military District, because of which several thousand people literally died“.
Voenkor Alexander Kots on this occasion I remembered one of my old materials: “15 years ago I wrote how two colonels made money by trading joint frequencies for civilian telecom operators. When they came to search one of them, he asked to go to the toilet and stayed there for a suspiciously long time. They opened the door, and he tore up the notebook and threw it into the toilet. They got it, and there was shadow accounting. To whom, when and how much. They couldn’t work without a roof. So in the notebook there was also a surname that coincided with the then deputy chief of the General Staff, chief of communications of the armed forces. I wouldn’t be surprised if this scheme is still alive in one form or another“.

Who is Vadim Shamarin

Head of the Main Communications Directorate of the RF Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin

The general is 52 years old, he was born in Taganrog, graduated from the Novocherkassk Higher Military Command School of Communications, and later from the Military Academy of Communications. He entered the service in 1992 and served in the Far East. He held the positions of commander of a remote control platoon of a radio center, deputy head of a radio center for technical affairs, head of a channel-forming systems center, deputy head of a node – head of a communications control point, chief of staff – deputy head of a communications center, as well as head of a communications center of a communications brigade.

In 2020, he was appointed acting head of the Main Communications Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) – Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces. Since 2021, he has held the position of Chief of the Main Communications Directorate of the RF Armed Forces – Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces.

How does the general’s family live?

Vadim Shamarin

Earlier, information appeared on the Internet that Vadim Shamarin lives in Podolsk, in an apartment with an area of 85 square meters, but it seems that he has not been there for a long time. Now the general’s family can be found in the Khoroshevsky district of the capital, on Polina Osipenko Street. Here, the serviceman’s relatives occupy two adjacent apartments on the 10th floor of one of the new high-rise buildings: a three-ruble apartment with an area of 72 square meters and a one-room apartment with an area of 36 square meters. A three-room apartment of the same area in this building costs about 25 million rubles, a one-room apartment will cost 11–12 million.

In addition, the general’s wife Elizaveta was also registered in a two-room apartment of 45 square meters on Shturvalnaya Street – this is in the capital’s South Tushino. The wife loves prestigious cars; the Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe AMG 53 sports car is registered to her. Now the market value of such a car in 2021 is about 12 million rubles.

Prestigious Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe AMG 53

Shamarin’s son is 29 years old, he seems to be a career military man, but in recent years he has worked in senior positions in one of the largest banks in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). Now he is registered in a one-room apartment on Polina Osipenko, but previously he was registered in a residential high-rise building on Leninsky Prospekt.