An investigation by the Moscow Times found that many Russian police officers fired by President Dmitry Medvedev have been hired for higher-ranking positions.
Nikolai Ovchinnikov, a former two-star police general and deputy interior minister, was fired by Medvedev along with others in a February 2010 police force purge. Ovchinnikov surfaced three months later as the head of the All-Russia Institute to Raise the Qualifications of Interior Ministry Staff, the newspaper said.
Critics speculate that repositioning of men such as Ovchinnikov will boost Medvedev's loyalist base.
"He can only hope that his appointees will become loyal Medvedev men," said Vladimir Pribylovsky, of Panorama think tank.
The reorganization raises questions about whether the Kremlin's efforts to clean up police corruption will be successful.
Ultimately, police reform will fail if national and police authorities continue to look out for one another instead of Russian citizens, says Georgy Satarov, president of the corruption-tracking company Indem Foundation.
"The police continue to see themselves as the protector of the state rather than of its people. In exchange, the state allows them to act in all sorts of illegal ways," Satarov says. "As long as this unwritten contract continues, there will be no real reform."
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