People close to the president give two versions of his benevolent attitude towards generals suspected of corrupt practices. The first is that Boris Yeltsin, in his mentality, remains a communist-style leader, to whom the principles of personnel policy and management of courtiers characteristic of the communist regime remain close to heart. This principle does not presuppose elevated moral, ethical or other criteria of personal propriety for high-level government officials. On the contrary, it is thought that if officials are discovered in improper activities and fall on the hook of the security services, they are more easily manageable and are forced to be more devoted to the master of the Kremlin. Therefore, there is no hue and cry in Russia against those leaders who, abusing their official transactions.
Generals are no exception.
In connection with this, I was told a remarkable story in the president's administration. A senior investigator, who works on the Prosecutor General's Office's most important cases, Colonel of Justice Boris Uvarov, told me that recently a rule was introduced in the Prosecutor's Office that when a big criminal case is brought against high-ranking generals or state officials, the investigations will be carried out by several groups who have no knowledge of each other's activity. The factual material collected from these groups is not concentrated or analyzed. In Uvarov's words, this is done on purpose, so that it will be easier to dismiss the case on command from above. According to Uvarov, many examples can be given, when cases, such as the one on the illegal acquisition of expensive Mercedes automobiles by Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev, or on the acceptance of bribes by Minister of Finance Panskov, have been dropped in this way.