Russian courts have handed out some of the toughest penalties yet in an expanding anti-corruption drive targeting the defence establishment. On 1 July, the Moscow City Court found former deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov guilty of bribery, money laundering and embezzling 4.1 billion roubles ($49 million). He received a 13-year sentence in a strict-regime penal colony, was fined 100 million roubles, stripped of state honours and saw 2.5 billion roubles in property, cars and cash confiscated. Less than a week later, a military tribunal sentenced Colonel General Khalil Arslanov, former deputy chief of the General Staff, to 17 years after convicting him of fraud and taking bribes linked to inflated telecommunications contracts with state supplier Voentelecom. Prosecutors said the scheme siphoned about 1.6 billion roubles, and the court imposed an additional fine of more than 24 million roubles on the officer, who was removed from his post in 2020. The campaign widened on 7 July when investigators detained Colonel General Viktor Strigunov, who served until late 2023 as first deputy director of Russia’s National Guard. He is accused of accepting more than 66 million roubles in kickbacks and authorising a Siberian training facility that allegedly never materialised, saddling the state with losses above 2 billion roubles. The trio of high-profile cases underscores President Vladimir Putin’s bid to stem graft and waste in a defence sector that now absorbs almost a third of federal spending amid the war in Ukraine. At least three other senior officials have been charged since February, signalling that investigators intend to press ahead with additional prosecutions.