Russian Major General Ivan Popov was imprisoned for 5 years

The Tambov garrison military court found Ivan Popov, the former commander of the 58th Army, guilty of official fraud and fraud, and sentenced him to five years in a general regime colony. Popov was also stripped of his military rank of major general.

Popov was arrested in May 2024, and in July, at the request of his lawyers, he was placed under house arrest. However, in February 2025, he was returned to the pre-trial detention center. The military prosecutor's office accused him of leaving Tambov for Moscow without permission.

According to the indictment, the general is suspected of stealing 1.7 thousand tons of metal products worth more than 100 million rubles, intended for the construction of defense facilities in the Zaporizhzhia region.

The state prosecutor demanded that Popov be sentenced to six years in prison, stripped of the rank of major general and fined 800 thousand rubles. Popov, however, did not admit his guilt and said that he was being illegally persecuted.

In late March, Popov sent an open letter to President Vladimir Putin, asking to be returned to the "zone of special military operations." He stressed that he had always considered himself a "loyal soldier" and that the army was his life. According to Popov's lawyer, Sergei Buinovsky, the Russian Ministry of Defense supported this request and planned to send him to battle as the commander of one of the "Storm Z" detachments.

In his last speech, Popov once again insisted on his innocence and asked to be “given the opportunity to serve the Motherland.” He said that he may have made mistakes in his life, but he had never broken the law and had always remained faithful to his oath.

Popov was dismissed from his post as commander of the 58th Army in the summer of 2023. At that time, he stated that he was dismissed for criticizing the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry. The general’s report received wide attention among military bloggers, in which Popov called his subordinates “gladiators” and himself Spartak.

The criminal case against Popov was the third in a series of high-ranking military arrests that began after Shoigu resigned as Defense Minister. Previously, former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov and head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s personnel department Yuri Kuznetsov were also detained. Later, former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Vadim Shamarin was arrested.

The first to be sentenced was Shamarin, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for accepting a bribe to fulfill a defense order. Read 'Zamin' on Telegram!