Russian General Sentenced to Nine Years for Bribery in Defense Contracts

A Russian military court sentenced a former general of the Defense Ministry to nine years in prison on Tuesday after finding him guilty of accepting bribes totaling nearly $150,000 in exchange for facilitating government contracts.

Prosecutors stated that Alexander Ogloblin, who previously held the position of communications chief at the ministry, received bribes from a telecommunications company between 2019 and 2023 while managing defense contracts totaling more than 1.4 billion rubles (around $17.3 million).

At the age of 58, Ogloblin pleaded guilty in March and requested a lighter sentence by providing testimony against other generals. During the court proceedings, he reiterated his remorse and cooperation with the authorities.

Prosecutors had originally requested that the judge impose a sentence exceeding 12 years for the former general.

In addition to his prison sentence, Ogloblin was fined 12.4 million rubles (approximately $153,000), prohibited from holding public office for six years, and stripped of his military rank and state honors.

This was not Ogloblin’s first legal trouble; in 2022, he was sentenced to four and a half years for involvement in a fraud case concerning nearly $20 million in state funds allocated for military communication. He managed to gain early release through corrective labor after assisting investigators, but the conditions of that release have been contested multiple times since then.