Putin dismisses police generals over journalist Golunov’s case

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed two high-ranking police generals - Major General Yuri Devyatkin, the head of the Interior Ministry’s drug trafficking department, and Major General Andrei Puchkov, head of the Interior Ministry's Moscow department, after the scandal of detention of journalist Ivan Golunov.

According to RIA Novosty, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev asked Putin to dismiss the two generals after announcing that charges against the journalist had been dropped on Tuesday.

Golunov, an anti-corruption reporter with the Meduza news website, was detained and charged last week for large-scale drug trafficking in a case that drew mass outrage, with his defenders saying he had been targeted for his investigations through fabricated charges.