(Interfax -MOSCOW. April 16, 2013) The closed part of the list of U.S. citizens prohibited to visit Russia is longer than the open part, a source at the Russian Foreign Ministry told Interfax on Tuesday. “Concerning the Russian list, its closed part carries more names than the open one,” he said. The source said he did not know how many […]
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(RIA Novosti, MOSCOW, April 17, 2013) The number of corruption related crimes recorded in Russia rose by almost 25 percent in 2012, according to a report by the Prosecutor General’s Office submitted to parliament on Wednesday. A total of 49,513 such crimes were registered last year, compared to 40,407 in 2011, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said. Over 13,500 individuals […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 15. 2013) Days before the much-anticipated trial of opposition leader Alexei Navalny is scheduled to begin, an Investigative Committee spokesman has suggested that Navalny’s constant criticism of the government caused investigators to “accelerate” work on the case against him. When someone “uses all his energy to bring attention to himself” and “provokes the government,” […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 15, 2013) Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Sunday described Vladimir Putin as a “fierce” defender of Russia’s national interests but also a “master of compromise” while commenting on everything from the opposition movement to escalating tensions with the U.S. Peskov’s comments, made on the state-owned Rossia 1 television channel on Sunday night, come amid […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 12, 2013) Most of the Russian officials added on Friday to the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals List (OFAC’s SDN list) under the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 are no longer working in the positions they occupied when an investigation against Hermitage Capital lawyer […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Olga Tanas & Scott Rose – April 12, 2013) Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and his wife, the second-biggest earners among families of Cabinet members, plan to move their assets under Russian jurisdiction to comply with new restrictions. Shuvalov and his wife Olga are planning to shift their foreign holdings, Alexander Machevsky, a spokesman […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Georgy Bovt, special to RBTH – April 12, 2013) Georgy Bovt is a prominent Russian columnist and political expert. The Russian anti-corruption campaign gains momentum. Will the Russian public be in favor of even stronger measures? Russia’s anti-corruption campaign looks like an attempt to “nationalize” the state elite by increasing their stakes […]
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(Interfax – April 12, 2013) More Russians are seeing results of the official anti-corruption campaign, the Interfax news agency reported on 12 April, citing an opinion poll carried out by national pro-Kremlin pollster VTsIOM. However, according to a detailed breakdown of poll results posted on at http://wciom.ru/index.php?id=459&uid=113912, the number of people who said that a lot is being done to […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Artem Zagorodnov, RBTH – April 10, 2013) As entrepreneurs begin to reap benefits from a top-down war against corruption, its long-term effects on the business climate remain uncertain. Russia’s staggering annual $300 billion corruption market (according to the government’s own figures) permeates nearly every aspect of life, from registering a business to obtaining […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 10, 2103) Corrupt businessmen and officials may take advantage of social discontent for resisting anti-corruption efforts of the authorities, National Anti-Corruption Committee Chairman, member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights Kirill Kabanov told a Wednesday press conference in Moscow. “I think there are fears that certain negative processes may […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 11, 2013) The number 303 stood Wednesday on a digital clock on Manezh Square that counts down the days to the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and President Vladimir Putin is watching it closely as the government races to make the final preparations for the Games. But that clock may be counting down […]
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(opendemocracy.net – April 8, 2013 – Pavel Usanov) Pavel Usanov is head of the Hayek Institute for Economy and Law in St. Petersburg and Reader at the Higher School of Economics. Cyprus’s monetary crisis has drawn international attention to the island’s role as a tax haven and money laundry for Russia’s rich. Meanwhile, Putin has announced a crackdown at home […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 10, 2013) The punishment for those found guilty of corruption should be as severe as for treason, Kirill Kabanov, head of Russia’s National Anti-Corruption Committee independent watchdog said on Wednesday. “We believe the penalty for corrupt activities should be equal to that in place for treason,” said Kabanov, who is also director of the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – April 9, 2013) The corruption market in Russia is estimated at $300 billion a year, with most of this money circulating in the public finance, state property and natural resource industries, according to estimates released Monday by the National Anti-Corruption Committee, an opposition-minded think tank. But experts worried that the majority of […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 5, 2013) Corruption levels in Russia are high, in the opinion of 80% of citizens. Some 43% argue corruption rates are growing, 40% say there is no change, and only 6% see a downward trend. The Public Opinion Foundation polled 1,500 respondents in 100 towns and cities in 43 regions in late March. Most Russians (68%) […]
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MOSCOW. April 4 (Interfax) – High local-level corruption is the cause of millions of Russians working in the “grey economy”, mentioned by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, Chairman of the Civil Initiatives Committee and former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. “I’m sure that local authorities are aware of this business. These citizens (employed in the grey economy) are not […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 3, 2013) A recent poll indicates that Russians consider the fight against corruption one of the three issues Russian President Vladimir Putin should concentrate on. Fifty-three percent of respondents said during the all-Russia poll held in March that the key task of the Russian president was overcoming the economic crisis and fostering the economy, Levada Center […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – April 4, 2013) New legislation on procurement will allow the government to eliminate kickbacks, Economic Development Minister Andrei Belousov said. Belousov was speaking during Goszakaz, an exhibition dedicated to state procurement a field known for a high level of corruption and a lack of government oversight. The expo opened Wednesday in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 3, 2013 – Jonathan Earle) President Vladimir Putin has expanded declaration requirements for more than 1.3 million state employees and given the Kremlin the power to demand and check disclosures, significant steps toward carrying out the government’s stalled anti-corruption plan. While the government hailed the moves, laid out in two decrees signed by Putin […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – April 1, 2013) In a meeting with traffic police on Friday, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said the preferential treatement given to certain “categories of people” for traffic violations significantly destabilized society. He did not specify which categories he was referring to, but in recent years there have been numerous cases in which […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Munzer Hallum, special to RBTH – April 2, 2013) After large-scale embezzlement schemes revealed at major government agencies and state-owned companies, Russian authorities step up their anti-corruption campaign. The bill forbidding officials from holding foreign-issued assets will a step in the crusade. In February 2013, President Vladimir Putin submitted a bill to the […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 2, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees on Tuesday obliging state officials to declare not only their income, but also their expenses from now on, in a bid to crack down on corruption. State officials will have to submit information concerning their acquisition of real estate, land, cars, valuables and shares, as well as […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 26, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-corruption-is.html) For Vladimir Putin’s Russia, corruption is the communism of today, Stanislav Belkovsky argues, and the struggle against it is like the struggle against the CPSU a quarter of a century ago, a battle that will lead to “Perestroika Version Two” and a series of events resembling those […]
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(Interfax – March 21, 2013) Over the past three years, the Russians have become less concerned about inflation, unemployment and economic crisis in the country and significantly more concerned about growing corruption, social inequality and uncontrolled immigration, Russian Interfax news agency reported on 21 March, citing an opinion poll carried out by the Levada Centre in February. According to the […]
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MOSCOW, March 22 (RIA Novosti) – The unprecedented posthumous trial of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky for tax evasion began on Friday as investigators denied he was arrested for uncovering major corruption by state officials. This is believed to be the first time a dead person has been prosecuted in either Russian or Soviet history. Magnistky, who worked for the British-based […]
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MOSCOW, March 20 (RIA Novosti) Cypriot Finance Minister Michael Sarris is set to continue negotiations on a potential Russian loan with Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov on Wednesday, after initial talks between the two countries’ finance ministries ended without an agreement. The Cypriot minister is in Moscow to discuss the extension of a 2.5-billion-euro loan that Russia […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova and Ezekiel Pfeifer – March 20, 2013) Investigators said Tuesday that they had closed the case into the 2009 death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose name is attached to a U.S. law that has caused tension in U.S.-Russian relations by seeking to punish Russians implicated in human rights violations. An inquiry into Magnitsky’s […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nikolaus von Twickel – March 18, 2013) Europe’s top intergovernmental corruption watchdog has found that Russia has made modest progress in fighting graft between 2010 and 2012. The country has implemented 15 recommendations out of 26 made by the Group of States Against Corruption, or GRECO, according to a report published Friday. The document, compiled […]
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MOSCOW, March 15 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the country’s military-industrial complex, called on Friday for harsher punishments for corrupt officials who “betray the motherland” by siphoning funds from defense projects. “These crimes must be punished in the harshest possible manner,” Rogozin told a meeting of officials from the Russian Federal Service for Defense […]
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(Interfax – March 15, 2013) The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) gives a generally positive evaluation to the anti-corruption efforts of the Russian authorities and to the implementation of the GRECO recommendations, the Russian Prosecutor’s General Office said. “The GRECO has noted that Russia had accomplished a lot in a short term to implement the recommendations of the GRECO. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nikolaus von Twickel – March 14, 2013) The salaries of top state employees have doubled since December, but such remunerations remain minute compared with unlawful kickbacks to the echelons of power, an anti-corruption expert said Wednesday. Higher pay amounts to buying loyalty from bureaucrats, but state salaries can hardly act as an efficient tool against […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – March 13, 2013) Members of the political opposition often accuse state officials of grandiose misdeeds, such as falsifying election results, stealing millions from state coffers, or even ordering the killings of their adversaries. Lately, they have begun accusing pro-Kremlin officials of a far less sinister offense, one more often leveled at schoolchildren […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – March 13, 2013) The level of trust in government officials and business executives remains dramatically low in Russia, with most residents saying they are more inclined to rely on their colleagues and independent experts, a research company said Tuesday. Only 5 percent of Russians believe that any government official tends to tell […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 12, 2013) President Vladimir Putin has instructed major state companies to unofficially provide tax and financial authorities with information about their deals monthly in an effort to probe corruption. The Federal Tax Service and Federal Financial Monitoring Service receive the information in order to check whether corporate management is affiliated with any businesses, a […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Ben Aris, special to RBTH – March 11, 2013) Some $350 billion has fled Russia since the 2008 global crisis. But things aren’t as bad as they seem. Genuine capital flight is only half the official figure, according to a new study by Ernst & Young, together with the Russian Direct Investment Fund […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson, Richard Solash – March 11, 2013) What if $230 million went missing and no one wanted to get it back? That is the puzzling question posed by Russia’s years of unwillingness to investigate the well-documented fraud claims made by lawyer and auditor Sergei Magnitsky. At least half a dozen European Union countries, plus Switzerland, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – March 12, 2013) Irina Yarovaya, head of the State Duma’s powerful Anti-Corruption and Security Committee, on Monday became the latest United Russia deputy to face embarrassing allegations of ethics violations with the publication of a report accusing her of de facto owning a multimillion-dollar apartment. Despite declared earnings of 2.9 million rubles […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – March 11, 2013) Tsar Peter I once proposed to his prosecutor-general that corrupt officials be either exiled to Siberia or executed. “But then who will be left?” the prosecutor responded, according to the oft-repeated historical anecdote. “We’re all thieves.” President Vladimir Putin repeated this tale during his press conference in December to illustrate […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Tim Wall, RBTH – March 11, 2013) Russian Presidential Commissioner for entrepreneurs’ rights Boris Titov gives an insight he is helping businessmen successfully deal with pressure from officials through the courts. Boris Titov, Russia’s foremost producer of sparkling wines, knows all too well what it’s like to face pressure from officials. But now, […]
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[Sergei Magnitsky: The enemy within: A saga that has been a parable of the self-mutilating way Russia is governed – The Economist – Editorial – March 9, 2013 – http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573119-saga-has-been-parable-self-mutilating-way-russia-governed-enemy-within] The Economist issues an editorial on the Magnitsky saga and its aftermath, and what it shows about brutal, deadly elitism in Russia: Martyred human rights activists; fatally brave journalists: Russia, […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 28, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/02/window-on-eurasia-from-upper-volta-with.html) Twenty-five years ago, German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt characterized the Soviet Union as being an “Upper Volta with missiles.” Now, Russian analysts, in response to findings of a Swiss firm, have suggested that a better analogy might be between the Russian Federation and a “Nigeria with snow.” The […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – www.imrussia.org – Tatiana Stanovaya – February 25, 2013 – click here for original posting of article) Two important tendencies have marked Russian political life during the past few months. The first is the Kremlin’s attempt to control officials’ and lawmakers’ foreign accounts and real estate holdings. The second is the growing activity of independent bloggers […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – February 26, 2013) President Vladimir Putin said last week that returning a Jewish book collection confiscated after the Bolshevik Revolution was impossible because it would open a “Pandora’s box” of claims on such property. “[If Russia] starts satisfying these sorts of claims, there would be no end to them and no telling […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – February 25, 2013) Anna Arutunyan is the politics editor of The Moscow News A story needs a beginning and end, but what has become the main narrative of Russia’s current political era doesn’t seem to have either. And the weak are meat the strong do eat, as David Mitchell coined in his […]
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MOSCOW, February 26 (RIA Novosti) Every tenth Russian company making settlements through the Central Bank’s payment system dodged tax payments in 2012, according to data posted on the regulator’s website on Tuesday. Central Bank figures show 242,000 companies or about 11 percent of the 2.2 million businesses surveyed by the regulator made zero tax payments last year, despite conducting […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – February 22, 2013) The Kremlin’s drive to crack down on corruption in the government has escalated dramatically in the last week and moved into a new phase. In addition to several high profile investigations into both government departments and large state-owned companies, senior officials have come out in recent days to indicate that the […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 32 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Richard Arnold – February 20, 2013) New recruits to the Russian police will soon undergo mandatory polygraph tests in order to gain admission to the force. The requirement, introduced in June 2012 as part of a comprehensive reform of the police, will now be introduced in practice […]
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MOSCOW. Feb 21 (Interfax) – Support of the Russian public to President Vladimir Putin’s bill banning foreign bank accounts of civil servants is practically unanimous, the Public Opinion Foundation said. It polled 1,500 respondents in 100 towns and cities in 43 regions on February 16-17. Seventy-three percent heard about the bill, and 26% learned about it during the poll. From […]
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MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) – The fight against corruption intensified in Russia in 2012 and the damage from corruption is estimated at more than 20 billion rubles, Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said. “We have determined over 49,000 (corruption) encroachments, which is almost one-fourth more than was registered in 2011, and the number of people found to have committed corruption […]
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MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) – Russia’s prosecutor general has accused law enforcement agencies of increasingly ineffective action against bribery. “It is for the second year running that we have been expressing anxiety at a decrease in the number of registered instances of bribery. Instances of offering bribes have not only been going down in number – by 21% – but […]
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