23 December 2025
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, at least 34 people, including executives and senior managers of defense companies, have been prosecuted in Russia for failing to fulfill state defense contracts. This follows from documents published on the website of Moscow courts of general jurisdiction, Reuters reports .
Among the defendants identified by the agency, at least 11 held senior positions at companies, and two more were in the top management ranks. At least five of the defendants have already been sentenced to prison terms of up to six years, and approximately 15 more are in custody awaiting trial.
According to Reuters, Russian authorities previously directly warned defense manufacturers of the risk of prison terms if they failed to fulfill their state defense contractual obligations.
The total number of criminal cases related to state defense procurement has already reached a record high in 2025. According to The Moscow Times , 43 such cases were filed in the courts in the first eight months of this year alone—an all-time high since the start of the war. By comparison, 34 cases were filed in all of 2024, 36 in 2023, and 32 in 2022. In the three pre-war years, the number of such cases did not exceed 23 annually.
Of the 43 cases filed between January and August 2025, 28 were directly related to the failure to fulfill state defense contracts, 13 were related to bribery, and two were related to large-scale fraud. The pattern of charges has also changed: while this year, articles on abuse of authority and breach of contract (Articles 201.1 and 285.4 of the Russian Criminal Code) are more frequently used, in 2024, almost half of the cases were related to fraud.
The number of bribery cases in the state defense procurement sector has also increased: 13 were recorded in the first half of 2025, while for the whole of 2024 there were 7, 9 in 2023, and 10 in 2022.
Too bad the article didn’t mention why those contracts weren’t fulfilled. I strongly suspect that it’s due to that lack of funds.
Take note, if someone in mafia land is prosecuted due to graft, it’s not because he’s corrupt, but because his superiors didn’t get their share or because he angered them in some other way. In worse cases, he gets to take a flying leap from a tsll building. This is the way putlerism works.