“From the point of view of the leadership, this undermines the country’s defense capabilities. Someone had to answer for that,” he said.
The Kremlin has been taking some careful measures. In March, for example, Putin appointed a new deputy defense minister for the material and technical supply of the army, the third to hold the post in the space of a year-and-a-half.
Ivanov’s excesses made him a “convenient scapegoat,” said Shumanov.
It also fits into the Kremlin’s broader campaign to impose a new war-time standard of frugal virtue-signalling on its elite, which has already seen various celebrities ostracized and in some cases prosecuted for public debauchery.
Ivanov “failed to sense the way the wind is blowing,” wrote Vladimir Pastukhov from University College London, by continuing to lead a flashy life “at a time when the entire elite started actively changing into khaki clothing.”
The Prigozhin link
Someone who did sense the wind of change, before he died in a suspicious plane crash, was Wagner warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin. He ranted against Russia’s military brass, reserving special venom for Shoigu, accusing him of starving his mercenary forces of ammunition and equipment.