Former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Pavel Popov was detained on suspicion of fraud, Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman of the Russian Investigative Committee, told TASS.

"The Main Military Investigations Department of the Russian Investigative Committee started a criminal case against former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Retired Army General Pavel Popov," she said.

According to Petrenko, from 2021-2024 Popov, while being in charge of Patriot Park, a military-theme park outside Moscow, enriched himself at the expense of the organization, acting jointly with the park’s director, Vyacheslav Akhmedov, and Vladimir Shesterov, deputy head of the Main Directorate for Innovations at the Russian Defense Ministry, both of whom had been charged earlier.

According to the agency, Popov arranged construction and repair work at his land plot outside Moscow, and the delivery of various valuable property to the plot at the expense of Patriot Park.

"In addition, acting through his subordinates, he forced the heads of commercial organizations that had contractual relations with Patriot Park to perform construction and installation work at his countryside estate free of charge. After the construction of the house and performing improvements of the plot, Popov continued to have technical maintenance and upkeep of his plot of about 3 hectares at the expense of the park," Petrenko said.

Popov served as Russian Emergency Situations deputy minister from 2008 to 2013. In 2013, he moved to the Russian Defense Ministry as an assistant to the Minister Sergey Shoigu. On November 7, 2013, he was appointed Russian Deputy Defense Minister in charge of the ministry’s main department of research and technological support of advanced technologies, the department of information systems and the main robotics research and testing center. He was dismissed from military service by decree of the Russian president in June this year. Since 2015, he has held the rank of army general. He has been awarded a Third Class Order for Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR, Order of Military Merit, and a medal of the Second Class Order of Merit for the Fatherland.

If convicted, Popov is facing up to 10 years in prison.