Another top Russian Defense Ministry official is arrested on bribery charges amid Kremlin shake-up WFTV [Video]

A second senior Russian defense official was arrested on bribery charges, officials said Tuesday, days after President Vladimir Putin replaced the defense minister in a Cabinet shake-up that fueled expectations of more such purges.

Lt. Gen. Yury Kuznetsov, the 55-year-old chief of the Defense Ministry’s main personnel directorate, was arrested in a raid early Monday on his suburban Moscow villa, Russian media reported. He was detained on charges of bribery and jailed pending an investigation and trial, according to the Investigative Committee, Russia’s top state criminal investigation agency.

Kuznetsov is accused of accepting an “exceptionally large bribe,” a charge punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The committee alleged he received the bribe in his previous post as head of the military General Staff’s directorate in charge of preserving state secrets, a position he held for 13 years.

In the raid, agents of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, broke down the doors …