A Russian court has sentenced a high-ranking military officer to a decade in prison for accepting bribes related to defense procurement contracts, according to investigators on Thursday.

Ivan Populovsky, the former head of a military representative office, along with his subordinate, Grigory Zorin, was detained in September 2024 on allegations of receiving over 11 million rubles (approximately $135,500) in bribes from suppliers of electrical goods and cables in exchange for preferential treatment of their contracts.

Populovsky was responsible for quality control over supply contracts valued at 1.2 billion rubles ($14.8 million) that were awarded in 2021 to two state-affiliated companies.

According to investigators, both Populovsky and Zorin admitted their guilt at the time of their arrest.

The military division of Russia’s Investigative Committee, which examines serious crimes, noted that Zorin previously received a five-year suspended sentence, although no specific date was provided for this ruling.

Additionally, Zorin was demoted from his rank of major and prohibited from holding any public office for four years.

An unnamed court issued the 10-year prison sentence for Populovsky, who will serve it in a high-security penal colony, and he was also stripped of his colonel rank.