Russia Has Begun To Try Dozens Of Defense Company Executives And Employees
4- 23.12.2025, 21:20
- 4,880
For disrupting the defense contract.
In Russia, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, at least 34 people, including heads and top managers of defense enterprises, have been brought to criminal responsibility for disrupting state defense orders. This follows from documents published on the website of Moscow's courts of general jurisdiction, writes Reuters.
At least 11 of the defendants identified by the agency held senior positions in the companies, while two more belonged to the category of top management. At least five of the defendants have already been sentenced to real prison terms of up to six years, while about 15 others are in custody awaiting trial.
According to Reuters, Russian authorities have previously explicitly warned defense manufacturers about the risk of jail terms if they fail to meet contractual obligations under the state defense order.
The total number of criminal cases related to the state defense order has already reached a record high for the partial year 2025. The Moscow Times calculates that 43 such cases were brought to the courts in the first eight months of this year alone - an absolute maximum since the beginning of the war. By comparison, 34 cases were referred 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 received between January and August 2025, 28 were brought directly for disruption of the state defense order, 13 - for bribery, and 2 - for fraud on a particularly large scale. At the same time, the structure of charges has changed: while this year articles on abuse of power and breach of contract (201.1 and 285.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) are more often used, in 2024 almost half of the cases were related to fraud.
The number of cases of bribery in the sphere of state defense contracts has also increased: in the incomplete year of 2025, 13 of them were recorded, while in the whole of 2024 - 7, in 2023 - 9, and in 2022 - 10.
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