Former Russian general faces fraud charges after raising war concerns

General Ivan Popov, former commander of the 58th Army of the Russian Armed Forces, appeared before the Garrison Military Court in Tambov. He was detained in May for large-scale fraud and was also said to have conveyed inconvenient truths about the war to Putin.

In July, Ivan Popov was placed under house arrest. The general is accused of selling approximately 2,000 metric tonnes of metal products intended to construct fortifications towards Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine. A criminal case was initiated based on the article on "fraud committed by an organized group or on a particularly large scale."

According to Popov's spokesperson, investigators claimed he was involved in the fraud committed by Oleg Tsokov, a Russian general killed in a Ukrainian shelling of Berdyansk. Tsokov died in July of last year.

The stolen materials were estimated to be worth over £805,000. Popov was supposed to have received around £8,000 from the sale.

Popov was removed from his position as commander of the 58th Army of the Russian Armed Forces in July last year. This decision was made after the general submitted a report stating that rotation was needed and Russian soldiers were "struggling with many problems."

Popov was said to have conveyed this directly with Vladimir Putin. Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov accused Popov of "disinformation and spreading panic."