MOSCOW: The former governor of Russia’s Kursk region and his ex-deputy have been arrested on suspicion of embezzling over $12 million of funds earmarked for border defenses with Ukraine, authorities said Wednesday.
Alexei Smirnov, 51, and Alexei Dedov, 48, were in charge of the region when Ukrainian troops stormed across the border in August 2024, mounting the biggest ground assault on Russian territory since World War II.
The two were detained “as part of a criminal investigation into the embezzlement of budget funds totalling more than one billion rubles ($12 million),” Russian interior ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk said on Telegram.
The funds were allocated to a local state-backed developer “for the construction of fortifications on the region’s border with Ukraine,” she added.
The defendants were taken into custody on Tuesday and Wednesday, she said, without saying which person was arrested on which date.
Video showed Smirnov being escorted into a glass defendant’s box at Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court.
The court said he would be held in pre-trial detention for at least two months.
Smirnov, governor of the region between May to December 2024, had drawn criticism over his response to the incursion, telling residents the situation was under control despite Ukraine breaking into several settlements.
President Vladimir Putin replaced him with pro-Kremlin lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein in December, saying the region needed a new crisis manager after residents voiced anger at the handling of the attack.
Kyiv’s forces captured hundreds of square kilometers of territory in the assault, but Moscow has since reclaimed most of it back.
Russia detains former governor of Kursk region
https://arab.news/wvxgq
Russia detains former governor of Kursk region
- Alexei Smirnov, 51, and Alexei Dedov, 48, were in charge of the region
- The defendants were taken into custody on Tuesday and Wednesday
Afghan Taliban says Pakistan bombs Kabul in fresh escalation
KABUL: The Afghan government said on Friday that Pakistan had carried out fresh strikes on Kabul and several other provinces.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a post on X that Kabul, Kandahar, Paktia, Paktika, and some other areas, were targeted.
Pakistan has killed at least 641 Afghan Taliban operatives and injured more than 855 in the ongoing conflict between the two sides since last month, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday.
Islamabad has said its airstrikes, which have at times directly targeted the Afghan Taliban government, are aimed at ending Kabul’s support for militants carrying out attacks on Pakistan. The Taliban has denied aiding militant groups.
Fresh clashes between the two neighbors began on Feb. 26 after Afghanistan’s border forces launched attacks against Pakistani military installations. Kabul said the attack was in retaliation for Islamabad’s airstrikes earlier in February. Both forces have since then engaged in the worst fighting between them in decades.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have remained strained since the Afghan Taliban seized power in August 2021. Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks across the country in recent months that it blames on militants it alleges are based in Afghanistan. Kabul denies the allegations and insists that its soil is not used by militant groups for attacks against other countries.
While Afghanistan has voiced the desire for dialogue, Pakistan has repeatedly ruled out talks, saying it will continue targeting militant hideouts through “Operation Ghazab lil Haq” until Kabul desists from supporting militants.
