Several top army generals and admirals were subjected to criminal probes last year, a chief military investigators said in an interview to Russian press.

      Chief military investigator Alexander Sorochkin told Rossiiskaya Gazeta government newspapers that all the cases were corruption related.

      The investigators said nine cases were also opened against other officers, including Colonel-General Yury Solovyov, the former commander of the Special Forces; Major General of the Medical Corps Yury Sabanin, head of the Military Healthcare Directorate of the Interior Ministry Internal Troops; and Rear Admiral Sergei Kozlov, chief of the Military Topographic Directorate of the General Staff.

      The most notorious case in 2013 was related to the former Russian defense ministed, Anatoly Serdyukov, who was fired from his post in November by Russian President as an investigation unfolded into a suspected 13 billion rubles ($363 million) fraud case involving alleged irregularities in the sale of ministry real estate.

      In December, Serdyukov was charged with negligence after investigators claimed he had cost the state 56 million rubles ($1.6 million) worth of damage by ordering soldiers to build a private road to a Caspian Sea holiday resort owned by his brother-in-law.