Under Sergey Shoygu, the Ministry of Defense looks more and more like MChS.
Shoygu’s apparently decided to put his senior civilian officials in uniform.
Tsalikov and Borisov Sport New Civilian Uniforms With Light Colored Epaulettes (photo: Mil.ru)
Deputy Defense Ministers Ruslan Tsalikov and Yuriy Borisov were photographed in their new apparel during last week’s conference on the results of the most recent surprise readiness evaluation.
Tsalikov gets to wear four army general stars given his title as “Actual Privy Councillor 1st Class.”
At the tank biathlon in Alabino, Tatyana Shevtsova and Anatoliy Antonov were caught wearing theirs at the right edge of this photo.
Antonov and Shevtsova in Uniform (photo: Rbc.ru)
Like Tsalikov, Shevtsova (who somehow managed to hang on after Serdyukov’s demise) also wears four stars based on her civilian rank.
It looks a bit like either the USAF or the starship Enterprise has come to visit.
At any rate, Izvestia wrote about the new uniforms. It notes the zippered jackets look like MChS, and are supposed to be more comfortable work-a-day attire for civilians and military men alike. But one anonymous senior officer said the material feels like overalls, and he’s generally not won over at this point.
Russian Defense Policy 
I follow the blog written by Viktor Baranetz at Komsomolskaya Pravda. After he posted photos of some of these personnel/uniforms from the Alabino tank range, he was told to remove the photos. Why? Who knows; but perhaps some readers found them offensive. One of the commenters suggested that the Russian military was beginning to dress like some of the more colorful armies in Africa.
Not aware of what might have happened here. But is this item on vpk-news (http://vpk-news.ru/news/17121) what he wrote? And there’s a picture by him as well. It’s written in the tone you describe. One could venture several obvious theories.