A Russian policeman has triggered a political storm by breaking a code of silence over corruption in the ranks, in videos posted on the internet.

Major Aleksei Dymovsky, a senior drugs trafficking investigator, accused corrupt police chiefs of ordering officers to jail innocent people and claimed that it was impossible to live on the official salary, £290 a month, without taking bribes.

He made an appeal to Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, to order a national inquiry into corruption, saying that he was speaking up for ordinary officers who considered dignity and honour as “words burnt into the mind”.

His courage earned him an instant dismissal from his superiors in the southern Russian city of Novorossiysk. Mr Dymovsky, whose wife is six months’ pregnant, has since hired a bodyguard, saying he feared for his family’s safety and that he was being followed.

He set out his complaints in two videos addressed to Mr Putin that have so far attracted 700,000 internet viewers. Dressed in his service uniform, Mr Dymovsky, 32, alleged that department chiefs forced officers to solve fake crimes to improve clear-up rates.

“I am tired of being made to uncover crimes that do not exist. I am tired of being told that these are the people who we need to go to jail,” Mr Dymovsky, who has been a policeman for ten years, said.

Police in Novorossiysk said that an internal inquiry had failed to uphold the allegations. As the row grew, however, state-controlled television began broadcasting clips from the videos and Rashid Nurgaliyev, the Interior Minister, ordered an investigation into the Novorossiysk force. He told local police chiefs to suspend Mr Dymovsky, rather than dismiss him.

The allegations will be no surprise to most Russians, who regard the police as corrupt, brutal and incompetent, but it is extremely rare for a serving officer to accuse his superiors so openly.

The scandal poses a political challenge for President Medvedev, who has described corruption as the most serious obstacle to the modernisation of Russia. Many will view Mr Dymovsky’s fate and the investigation into his claims as a key test of the President’s commitment to rooting out the problem.

Mr Putin’s spokesman said that he had been told about the videos but had not commented because “reacting to such statements is impossible without having checked the claims”.

Mr Dymovsky said he had expected to be dismissed for speaking out but hoped that he would be heard “by other officers who don’t want to live on their knees”.

New recruits signed up only because they knew that they would make money from bribes while on duty, he said. He appealed to Mr Putin: “You talk about reducing corruption and that corruption should not simply be a crime but also improper. But this is not the case. I told my boss that we have corrupt police in Novorossiysk and he replied that it can’t be erased, that it’s the local mentality.”

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