When Ukraine’s then-president Viktor Yanukovych fled the country in February, abdicating power, he left in his wake a government seeped in corruption and kleptocratic practices.
Six weeks later, Ukraine is on the brink of invasion by a Russia that is just as, if not more, committed to official corruption, according to a report by the Center for Security Studies.
In the latest edition of the Center's Russian Analytical Digest, researchers analyze corruption and anti-corruption practices within Russia's government and business communities. Both Russia and Ukraine ranked below notoriously corrupt Azerbaijan in the most recent Corruption Perception Index — a composite that draws on multiple expert opinion surveys that poll perceptions of public sector corruption in 177 countries around the world.
Researchers note that although Russian President Vladimir Putin has implemented anti-corruption measures during his 15 years in power, the regime has largely created “conditions in which corruption is flourishing.”
While Yanukovych's ouster was in part due to his opponents' hostility to corruption, the Russian Analytical Digest notes that under Russia, most citizens accept corrupt practices as a way of life.
Researchers pointed to 2013 opinion polling in which 30 percent of Russian respondents said that “businessmen as well as normal citizens can solve problems in many cases only by bribery and corruption,” and 22 percent called corruption a “trait of our people.”
Read the full issue HERE.