President Putin is Coming Back. Will He Bring Increased Graft With Him?

In an announcement that seemed to surprise no one, Putin announced on Saturday his intention to be United Russia’s candidate for president in the March 2012 general elections.  Medvedev, who was famously described by US diplomats in leaked cables as the Robin to Putin’s Batman, will become Prime Minister.

Following his election in May 2008, Medvedev said one of his biggest priorities was clamping down on corruption.  In his inauguration speech, he made rule of law a priority. “I believe my most important aims will be to protect civil and economic freedoms....We must fight for a true respect of the law.”  In July of the same year, Medvedev announced a presidential anti-corruption council and approved a plan to create state-level anti-corruption bodies.

But according to international watchdogs, corruption at all levels of government has continued unabated.

According to Transparency International, bribery costs Russia $300 billion annually, almost 18 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.  The corruption watchdog rated the country 154 out of 180 countries in its 2010 index, tying it with Yemen, Congo-Brazzaville, and Guinea.

In US State Department cables leaked last year, US Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle wrote that the Moscow “government operates more as a kleptocracy than a government” and that “everything depends on the Kremlin ... [former Moscow mayor Yuri] Luzhkov, as well as many mayors and governors, pay off key insiders in the Kremlin.”

OCCRP is brings you its weekly installment of all things happening this week on ‘The Bloc’ –Russia tells the UK, to be more transparent, two Ukrainians find unorthodox ways to plea for release from jail, an anorexic mobster escapes from a hospital, and an Albanian minister may, or may not have been, caught on tape.

Medvedev: “The UK is corrupt, too”

British PM David Cameron this week made his first trip to the Moscow since relations with the Kremlin were strained in 2006 over the death of a former KGB spy-turned UK citizen Alexander Litvinenko.

Cameron, traveling with 24 businessmen in tow, hoped to spark more business ties, like a deal he made for Russia to accept British beef for the first time since the Mad Cow Disease scares of the 1990s. In one day he secured business deals worth over £215 million ($340 million).  Human rights watchdogs implored him not to ignore the still unresolved issue of Litvinenko’s death.  Cameron apparently wasn’t listening.

Prime Minister had in tow British Petroleum’s CEO Robert Dudley, who fled Russia in 2008 after five years running the company’s operations.  BP had been coming under increased scrutiny from the Russian government, including raids on their Moscow headquarters by Russian courts.

VALERIE HOPKINSAlbanian Anti-Organized Crime NGO Accused of Illegal Activities

The Albanian Interior Ministry wants to shut down a Tirana-based non-governmental organization (NGO) focused on combating terrorism and organized crime, citing “unconstitutional conduct and illegal activities.”

The ministry filed a civil suit against the Albanian Study Center Against Terrorism and Organized Crime because the group allegedly pursued investigations without going through necessary bureaucratic steps.

“This organization has practically operated as a private investigative police by applying methods characteristic of the state. With such actions, the fundamental constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens have been violated. Many actions of this organization can be conducted only with the approval of the court, or other state structures,” Deputy Interior Minister Avenir Peka said in an

The state police say that the organization was using official police emblems and imitating logos, identification badges, and a title that sounds like a state institution, all of which are considered criminal offenses.

The police have also accused the organization of embezzling funds.

 

Letter from a Kiev Jail

Former Ukranian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko , begging readers not to accept current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich’s “false promises.”  Tymoshenko, on trial for charges of abuse of power, was writing in response to an op-ed last week penned by the current prime minister, who assured readers that “Ukraine’s future lies with Europe.”  Tymoshenko, who was denied bail this week, agreed with the title but said, in essence, that Ukraine is getting further from Europe with Yanukovich at the helm.  She and co-author Hrihoriy Nemyria highlighted increased pressure on the media (the Reporters Without Borders media freedom ranking fell 42 places in one year, precipitous drops in foreign direct investment (73% the first months of 2011), and governance with “mechanisms associated with Soviet-style autocracy.”  She and ten members of her administration are in prison awaiting trial on what she refers to as “the flimsiest of charges.”

VALERIE HOPKINSCoup BirthdayToday marks the 20th anniversary of the failed coup that wound up toppling the USSR.

Many Soviets took advantage of the collapse to go into organized crime, or made millions committing privatization fraud.  Some of those very people have wound up back in positions of power.  By and large, citizenries lacking strong cultures of civic engagement inherited a system with a disregard for the rule of law, and a law enforcement mechanism plagued by endemic corruption.

Western governments and non-governmental organizations have poured billions into fostering transparent, flourishing democracies.  But aside from the former socialist union’s Baltic members, twenty years later the wheels of progress in most of the fifteen countries that used to make up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics remain stuck in the mud of corruption, and sinking further down due to organized crime.

2004’s Orange Revolution inaugurated hope for a democratic future for Ukraine, but President Viktor Yanukovich has been taking a hard line at home, even while making overtures to the European Union.  The Kangaroo Court trial of former Prime Minister Julia Tymoshenko for malfeasance, charges by the president for political gain, climaxed last week as she was carted off to prison for mouthing off to a judge.

Belarus’ president Alexander Lukashenko is referred to as while Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan rate as two of the world’s most oppressive regimes.  In , the two countries tied with Sudan for 172nd place.  The survey assessed 178 countries, meaning the two republics were ahead of only Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Myanmar.