During the war years in Russia, criminal cases were opened against 697 senior federal and regional officials, according to calculations by Novaya-Europe. Before the war, such cases averaged about 60 a year, but after it began the annual average rose to 164, an increase of 2.7 times.
In 2025, the number of cases against high-ranking officials grew by nearly 30% compared with 2024. Data for the first three months of 2026 suggest that the pace of prosecutions has remained at least as high and may surpass last year’s level.
From January to March 2026, cases were initiated against at least 72 officials at the federal and regional level. By the publication’s estimate, a manager at or above the level of a regional deputy minister is detained every three days on average. That total includes 5 federal officials, 23 heads of regional branches of federal agencies, including Interior Ministry structures, and 43 regional-level officials.
The dataset includes officials accused of corruption-related crimes who rank no lower than deputy heads of departments in regional ministries and agencies, as well as State Duma deputies and members of regional legislatures, mayors, and deputy mayors of regional capitals.
On March 26, Stavropol Territory Energy Minister Ivan Kovalev was detained in a case involving abuse of office. He became the eleventh regional minister to face criminal prosecution since the start of 2026. The defendants also include eight deputy regional ministers and six former or current vice-governors, among them Yevgeny Lukovnikov, Yevgeny Nesterov, Anna Minkova, Andrey Faleychik, and acting Chukotka Vice-Governor Pavel Koshcheev.
The publication describes former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tsalikov, detained on March 5, 2026, as the highest-ranking defendant this year. Investigators allege that the former associate of Sergei Shoigu organized a criminal group and was involved in the theft and laundering of budget funds, bribery, and embezzlement.
In total, 26 top-level officials at or above the rank of deputy minister in a regional government were detained in the first three months of 2026. For comparison, 80 officials of that rank were detained throughout 2025, or roughly one case every four to five days. Experts cited by the article link the rise in prosecutions to an effort to keep elites under pressure and consolidated around the authorities, as well as to attempts to curb corruption, at least in the military sphere, in order to mobilize resources amid sharply heightened geopolitical stakes.
According to Tatyana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Berlin Center, the scale of the purges in Russia’s elites is likely to keep growing: the country needs resources and a great deal of demonstrative justice while Putin is almost entirely removed from non-military affairs.