Top Russian military officials are being arrested. Why is it happening?
Voice of America
FILE - This photo taken and released by Basmanny District Court press service on April 24, 2024, shows Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov standing in a defendants' cage in court in Moscow. FILE - In this undated photo distributed by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Aug. 28, 2021, Lt. Gen. Yury Kuznetsov is seen during a military parade in Krasnodar, Russia. FILE - This photo released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, shows Lt. Gen. Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of the military general staff in Moscow on Oct. 6, 2023. FILE - In this photo released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on June 8, 2023, Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Army, is seen in a photo at an undisclosed location.
It began last month with the arrest of a Russian deputy defense minister. Then the head of the ministry's personnel directorate was hauled into court. This week, two more senior military officials were detained. All face charges of corruption, which they have denied.
A police officer directs traffic so people can evacuate as a wildfire breaks out near Pacific Palisades on the west side of Los Angeles on Jan. 7, 2025. The World Meteorological Organization says evacuation plans are important in saving lives in natural disasters. A National Guardsman talks with a driver near damaged structures burned from a wildfire in Altadena, California, on Jan. 10, 2025. The devastation from the Palisades Fire is seen from the air in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2025. A person wears a mask because of hazardous air quality due to wildfires as she rides her bike by the beach in Santa Monica, California, on Jan. 8, 2025.
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FILE - A photo released by the Arakan Army shows its members posing in front of the Gwa town signboard at the entrance gate, following their capture of Gwa Township in southern Rakhine State, Myanmar, on Dec. 29, 2024. District map of Rakhine State, created by the Myanmar Information Management Unit with support from UK Aid, dated April 24, 2020. FILE - Major General Twan Mrat Naing, commander-in-chief of the Arakan Army, speaks to VOA via Zoom from an undisclosed location for security reasons on June 15, 2024. FILE - A photo released by the Arakan Army shows its members posing at one of the Myanmar junta's military outposts, captured in Gwa Township, southern Rakhine State, Myanmar, on Dec. 29, 2024.