Focus on the System That Keeps Vladimir Putin and His Oligarchs Afloat in Russia.
Anyone who wants to denounce this system risks their life.
Ordered by Vladimir Putin, Russia's invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. After almost three months of war without major success for the Russian army, many people in the West are wondering how the Russian people can continue to blindly support Vladimir Putin.
Many are even wondering why the Russian people's support for Putin has continued to grow since the beginning of the conflict. To understand why Putin is strengthened after three months of conflict, one must understand the basis of his regime.
It is impossible to understand Putin's regime without understanding the corruption he has created, nurtured, shaped, and constrained. And this is what could one day bring about his downfall, just as it did for his predecessor and political godfather Boris Yeltsin. Mapping the details of this corruption is almost impossible. But two simple ideas can help make sense of the big picture.
The first applies to systemic corruption wherever it occurs: it is not primarily a problem of individual immorality, but a collective trap. The second applies specifically to Russia: it became trapped in this trap as a result of its imperfect and ultimately incomplete transition to democracy in the 1990s.
We tend to think of corruption as a lack of morality when a greedy person decides to make a personal profit by directing public resources to his or her interests. But while this is not entirely untrue, it misses the most important point, which is that corruption is a group activity. There are corruptors and corrupted, resource diverters and resource dealers, people who look the other way, and others who want a piece of the pie. When this type of networked corrupt behavior becomes widespread, it creates a parallel system of rewards and punishments.
The reverse Robin Hood principle
What is different about systemic corruption is that it is expected behavior. This makes it very difficult for individuals to resist corruption. Those who refuse to participate in the shadow economy of favors and bribes are passed over for promotions, denied benefits, and removed from power. Meanwhile, those skilled in corruption rise through the ranks, gaining more authority, more resources to distribute to cronies, and a greater ability to punish anyone who poses a threat to them.
The result is a system in which power and wealth accrue to those willing to play the corruption game and those who do not are left behind. Corruption serves as a regressive tax, like Robin Hood in reverse. All resources are shifted to the top of the system, at the expense of the majority of the population.
Those who denounce this corrupt system risk their lives
The most obvious evidence of this dynamic of corruption in Russia is the luxurious properties and mega-yachts of top officials and their closest associates. But the damage is deeper, it affects the lives of ordinary people and deprives them not only of public funds that end up in private pockets, but also often of their basic rights.
Ivan Golunov, one of Russia's best-known investigative journalists, has consistently exposed corruption in Moscow's municipal government for years, uncovering evidence of crony deals, missing money, and failing public services. In 2019, he was arrested on false drug charges, beaten, and imprisoned.
After an unprecedented outcry in the Russian media and abroad, he was released and the charges were dropped. But the message was clear: those who try to break the culture of corruption risk losing their safety, their freedom and even their lives.
How did Russia get to this point?
The answer, perhaps counter-intuitively, lies in democratization. Or rather, in the fact that there was not enough democratization. There was corruption in the Soviet Union. But after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the sudden explosion of freedom of expression and freedom of association in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union brought new opportunities, not only for political and economic development but also for crime and corruption.
Thus, the freedoms of speech and association could not only be used for good things but could also be used for illegal activities. If people can get together and talk more easily, they can plan corrupt activities.
This would not have been so bad if democratization had also meant control of the executive, with an independent judiciary to investigate and prosecute crimes. For capitalism to have functioning markets, you also need institutions. You need banks that can extend credit, you need a strong legal system that protects property. Estonia has followed this path. For example, after the fall of the USSR, the new democratically elected parliament there strengthened the judicial system and introduced new controls on the executive.
Since the late 1990s, this corruption has become institutionalized at all levels of the Russian government
But in Russia, the government has responded to the invitation of Western advisors to remove the state from the economy as much as possible to allow free markets to flourish. Less power to the institutions and as few restrictions as possible. In this vacuum, parallel structures of corruption flourished, driving honest politicians out of government and honest businesses out of the market.
By the late 1990s, official corruption flourished at all levels of the Russian government. In 1999, as Boris Yeltsin's presidency began to weaken, the elites put pressure on him: if Yeltsin appointed their chosen successor, they would ensure that he and his family would not be prosecuted for embezzlement of public funds. He agreed. In August 1999, Yeltsin presented this successor: a young ex-KGB agent from Saint Petersburg named Vladimir Putin.
The hardest part of the job for Russia began then, with Vladimir Putin who was going to reinforce this system of corruption to strengthen his power and his hold on Russia. This is how today he can remain at the head of Russia surrounded by his oligarchs with the consent of the Russian people.