The Second Western District Military Court has commuted the sentence against 69-year-old Pavel Popov, a retired army general, former deputy head of the Russian Defense Ministry, sentenced to 19 years in a penal colony for corruption-related crimes, receiving a particularly large bribe, as well as committing official crimes. As his lawyer Denis Sagach told TASS, the appeal reduced the term to 10 years in a strict regime colony.
"Due to the excessive severity of the punishment imposed, the appellate instance reduced the term of my client from 19 years to 10 years in a strict regime colony," the agency's interlocutor said.
When asked about appealing the verdict in the cassation instance, the lawyer said that "no decision has been made on this matter yet."
"After we receive the full text of the decision of the appellate instance, as well as communicate with the principal, a decision will be made to appeal in cassation or not," the defender summed up.
Pavel Popov held the post of Deputy Minister of Defense for 11 years, until the resignation of the head of the military department, Sergei Shoigu, in May 2024.
In this regard, EADaily reminds: the Military Court of Cassation in Novosibirsk on June 16 considered the defense's complaint against the verdict of the former commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army of the Russian Federation Ivan Popov, popular among military personnel, who received five years in a penal colony in the case of theft of rolled metal for the construction of fortifications on the front line. The defense insisted on the termination of the criminal prosecution of the ex-general, believing that he was unfairly accused, convicted and demoted. According to the lawyer, he received about 70 thousand appeals in support of the former commander. The demoted general is now serving a sentence in a colony in Kolomna near Moscow. The lawyers intend to continue fighting for him in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
As for the case of ex-Deputy Minister of the Army General Pavel Popov, who was not deprived of his rank, the 235th garrison military court previously found him guilty of all the crimes he was charged with and sentenced him to 19 years in prison with serving his sentence in a high-security penal colony, a fine of 85 million rubles, with a ban on holding positions in government agencies for seven years. Popov was stripped of the military rank of army general.
In addition, the court confiscated Popova 45.6 million rubles in the budget of the Russian Federation. The court recovered from him and accomplices Vladimir Shesterov and Vyacheslav Akhmedov 18.2 million rubles in favor of the Ministry of Defense, recovered 7.9 million rubles from Popov in favor of the Ministry of Defense, 6.7 million rubles were recovered from Popov, Shesterov and Akhmedov in favor of the Patriot Park. In addition, real estate in the amount of 10 million rubles, cash in the amount of over 33 million rubles, as well as luxury watches with a total value of more than 6 million rubles were recovered from Popov and converted into income of the Russian Federation.
Investigative actions in the criminal case against Popov were completed at the end of August 2025. The army general in the final version was charged with committing crimes under part 6 of Article 290, part 4 of Article 159, part 2 of Article 292, part 3 of Article 286 and part 1 of Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (bribery, fraud, illegal possession of weapons, forgery and abuse of official authority).
The investigation found that in 2022-2024 Popov, as well as the former deputy head of the Main Directorate of Innovative Development of the Ministry of Defense Vladimir Shesterov and Vyacheslav Akhmedov, who then held the position of director of the military-patriotic Park of Culture and recreation "Patriot" committed a multimillion-dollar theft of budget money through the entry into the documentation of deliberately false information about the construction work carried out in the park. According to the investigation, in 2014-2024, Popov also received a bribe from the general director of Bamstroyput OJSC for general patronage during construction work in the form of providing the general with the opportunity to use the apartment and car free of charge from the bribe giver. The investigation estimated the total amount of the bribe at more than 45 million rubles, based on the cost of renting an apartment and a car for 10 years.