The arrests began last month when a Russian deputy defense minister was detained. Then the head of the ministry’s personnel directorate was hauled into court. This week, two more senior military officials were detained. All face corruption charges. They started shortly before President Vladimir Putin began his fifth term and shuffled his ally, longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, into a new post. The changes immediately raised questions about whether Putin was reasserting control over the Defense Ministry amid the war in Ukraine, whether a turf battle had broken out between the military and the security services, or whether some other scenario was playing out behind the Kremlin’s walls.