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Vladimir Putin and Corruption: How a side effect of the system became the system

Julek McCallum

Lakehead University – Orillia

INTD-3014-WAO: Contemporary Authoritarianism

Dr.Todd Stubbs

March 14, 2023

Vladimir Putin and Corruption: How a side effect of the system became the system

Authoritarianism in a modern context makes our minds instantly jump to think of Adolf

Hitler, Nicolae Ceaușescu, or Josef Stalin. Maybe you have heard the term thrown around when

someone describes the recent American president Donald Trump’s campaign tactics. However

it's been around as a tool since ancient Rome primarily to manipulate and suppress citizens while

the powerful are immune to punishment or accountability. These are common symptoms of a

regime that the Russian people unfortunately are all too familiar with. Although not on the same

scale as under the leadership of Stalin, Vladimir Putin’s regime manipulates its citizens using

tricks right out of his Playbook. Media censorship, intimidation, killing and throwing their

opponents in jail are all tactics they both keep under the noses of Russian citizens. How has

Putin used classic authoritarian tactics to perpetuate his regime? The difference being, after

the collapse of the Soviet Union in December of 1991, Russia became a Federalist Republic so

Putin now has to scratch the backs of his Oligarchs by allowing them to embezzle money

through large joint Private and state owned industries. These dozen or so families of Russia's

wealthiest men inherited about ninety percent of the USSR's former infrastructure, physical

assets, corporations etc. When it collapsed, these “oligarchs' ' (oligarkhi in russian) paid tens of

millions of dollars for superyachts in Cyprus, Private Siberian estates, and to line their own

pockets. Russian Oligarchs will even sell military equipment or fuel to the adversaries under

Putin’s nose to fund their opulent lifestyle. But if an Oligarch steps too far out of line or isn’t

loyal to the Kremlin they either get put away for life in a Russian jail for embezzlement, or

mysteriously die. The mechanism that is the hierarchy of Russian power is lubricated by

corruption. In order to confine NATO, maintain power. As a last ditch effort to expand his empire

Vladimir Putin is now ten months into an invasion of Ukraine in order to return the former
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Soviet Union's glory by trying to take back the only warm water port in Odessa, the old soviet

infrastructure throughout the country, including nuclear power plants, that will soon rust and rot

away if not used to its full potential. Putin is frantically trying to grasp what's left of Ukraine.

There are plenty of reasons why Putin wants Ukraine, an Article by This article by E.A.Wood

W.E Pomeranz E.W Merry and M.Trudolyubov describe key motives for the “Special Military

Operation” in Ukraine and likely motivating factors. They claim large reserves of crude oil in the

Ukrainian Donbass region, The remaining infrastructure of the Soviet Union, the lush farmland

all as motivating factors and causes for the invasion. Another contested reason for the invasion is

that there are large reserves of crude oil discovered buried underneath the Donbass region

Ukraine discovered not long before Russia started sponsoring separatist movements in the east of

the country in 2014.

Vladimir Putin can hate the expansion of NATO “but he is not genuinely frightened by it.

Russia has the largest army in Europe, engorged by two decades of lavish spending. NATO is a

defensive alliance. It has never attacked the Soviet Union or Russia, and it never will. Putin

knows that. But Putin is threatened by a flourishing democracy in Ukraine. He cannot tolerate a

successful and democratic Ukraine on Russia’s border, especially if the Ukrainian people also

begin to prosper economically. That would undermine the Kremlin’s own regime stability and

proposed rationale for autocratic state leadership”(Person et al, 2022). Yeltsin himself stated

“What is also very important is that we are creating the mechanisms for consultations and

cooperation between Russia and the Alliance (Warsaw Pact). And this will enable us—on a fair,

egalitarian basis—to discuss, and when need be, pass joint decisions on major issues relating to

security and stabilities, those issues and those areas which touch upon our interests.” meaning

that many of those who blame the current Ukraine conflict on NATO overlook the fact that in the
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thirty years since the end of the Cold War, Moscow’s rejection of NATO expansion has veered in

different directions at different times (Person et al, 2022). However conflict in Europe has not

happened on this size or scale since the second world war and the west is looking for answers.

Putin and Russia

“With a population of 145 million citizens incorporating 172 nationalities and an area covering

170 million square kilometers, Russia is one of the largest and most ethnically diverse

multinational federations in the world.”(Ross, 2005). This culturally and linguistically diverse

population, and the giant swath of land modern Russia encompasses makes a central federalised

government not ideal to govern the entirety of Russia. However, Putin became president in the

year 2000 after Yeltsin resigned due to “health problems”, he will jump between the role of

president and prime minister of Russia between himself and his loyal United Russia actor Dmitri

Medvedev. This is because the Russian constitution allows a president to be in office for only

two terms of six years. The Biggest internal threat to Putin is disapproval by his own citizens,

even though demonstrations made by said disgruntled citizens can result in arrests and jail.

Demokratizatsiya, Russian for “democratization” is the title of a peer reviewed article written to

cover the changes in the late Soviet Union and post-Soviet states since 1985. This academic

journal suggests four factors that “thwarted the consolidation of federalism and democracy in

Russia”(Ross, 2005). Socioeconomic and Political Asymmetry within Russian society. Referring

to the vast differences between not only different classes of Russian people, but vast language

and religious differences between the many densely packed ethnic groups dotted all around the

country. The “war of constitutions' ' and the development of contract Federalism, “Referring to

the period from October 1991 to October 1993, there was a fierce struggle for power between the

Russian presidency and parliament. Taking advantage of this period of political turmoil, a
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number of republics were able to ratify radical confederalist constitutions, which granted

themselves considerable powers of political and economic autonomy.” (Ross, 2005) The weak

legitimacy of the constitution itself due to many “Russian” citizens living in modern russia today

don’t consider themselves “Russian”. Those who live in old Soviet Bloc countries that have

since been Annexed by Russia after the USSR collapsed, have people living in those areas

although speak Russian along with their native language though don't always recognise or

strictly adhere to the Russian constitution. Another threat to Putin now is succession. Although

not likely from a political rival because many of them are either dead or in jail. Alexei Navalny

is a political opponent of Putin, and became a sensation in Russia after his investigative

journalism and buying stock in Russian energy companies to obtain access to internal documents

and expose embezzlement and corruption through public videos. Although Navalny is using

investigative journalism to expose Putin and his Oligarchs for blatent disregard of Russian law,

Navalny has almost lost his life to this cause. During a domestic flight Navalny was poisoned

using Novichok, an old nerve agent developed by the Soviets but delivered directly at the hands

of Putin. Navalny spent over a year in Germany recovering after the attack, however during his

time abroad he published a full documentary specifically targeting Putin and how corruption

works through Russia’s biggest energy and mining companies, oligarchs, and politicians. The

documentary includes close drone shots and a full layout of Vladimir Putin's opulent Black Sea

estate. All while demonstrating through videography the methods of corruption used by the

officials he exposes. Not only has Navalny himself proved that he had been poisoned by Putin’s

henchmen, by obtaining a confession by the person who poisoned him. But made a full

documentary type video documenting the whole ordeal. Navalny has made his whole campaign

focused on exposing the corruption and scandals in Putin's regime to try and destroy his
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reputation. Navalny was arrested and thrown in jail when he returned to Moscow from the

hospital in Germany where he recovered from the poisoning. Navalny was arrested for leaving

the country while on Parole from previous charges he received for previous political

disobedience. Support for Navalny in Russia and abroad was really gaining traction before and

even after he was put in jail. However the trending topic of politics in Russia is now focused on

the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The invasion of Ukraine was supposed to be quick and swift. Just like Napoleon, Putin

tried overwhelming Ukraine with speed and numbers in order to try to capture Kiev, but fierce

unexpected resistance, terrible logistics, and ancient equipment allowed the Ukrainians to

counterattack incredibly effectively. The war in Ukraine went from a failed attempt at a hostile

takeover, and now is a slow battle of attrition. With artillery, tanks, guns and ammo being

supplied to Ukraine by NATO, Russia will have to ramp up production of weapons or risk losing

the war due to being unable to sustain such heavy losses. To prop up the Russian army, Putin has

Wagner group mercenaries fighting for him in Ukraine which directly contradicts the Russian

constitution. Not only are private militants forbidden in russian doctrine, these combatants in

Ukraine are committing atrocious war crimes. The damage done by Vladimir Putin's regime is

incredibly far reaching. Prisoners of war being executed, villages being robbed and pillaged,

civilians being tortured and killed, and the continuous shelling of hospitals, schools, and

nurseries. All at what cost? to “denazify” Ukraine. The reason why the Russian state can get

away with such atrocities is because of Russian threats to escalate the conflict and use nuclear

weapons. Russia has a “no-first-strike” policy in their doctrine however because the Kremlin

now recognises eastern Ukraine as Russian territories as “Luhansk People's Republic” and the
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“Donetsk People's Republic”, the Kremlin sees the pushback of ukrainian forces as an invasion

of sovereign Russian territory to justify a nuclear response. This fear of escalation is keeping the

conflict in Ukraine to a tit for tat standstill. However this long drawn out conflict could really

end in a sovereign Ukraine, free of Russian influence for what is arguably the first time in the

country's history. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Kiev was still loyal to Moscow even after

inheriting the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The only reason why Ukraine gave the

Russians back their weapons is because of a non-aggression agreement made between the two

countries. “It is not every day that a nuclear arsenal falls into a country’s lap. Yet this is exactly

what happened as the USSR dissolved in 1991 and Ukraine inherited the globe’s third-largest

cache, with nearly 4,000 strategic and tactical weapons. For officials in the newly independent

nation who had never grappled with nuclear management, the challenge was both daunting and

intriguing, but ultimately overwhelming, as Kiev transferred all its warheads to the Russian

Federation.” (Kostenko,2022). Viktor Yanukovych, the president of Ukraine before Zelensky,

fled the country after mass protests, making Zelensky the first real prime minister of Ukraine

without the same kind of Russian influence the country had experienced before. However, now

that the Kremlin and Kiev don’t have friendly relations, and with the majority of Ukraine’s

people wanting to someday become part of the European Union, Russia fears that without any

intervention, prosperous democratic Europe and NATO will essentially be at Putin's back

doorstep. Not only is this a major threat from a tactical standpoint, it also presents new threats to

Putin’s regime. Relevance and approval for Putin and his practices could be influenced by the

growth of Russia’s European neighbors. Putin’s loyal friend Aleksandr Lukashenko, the

president of Belarus who has been in power since 1994 leads his own authoritarian regime that

by western standards might as well be a puppet state acting on behalf of Russia. From
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coordinated troop movements and preparing staging grounds of invasion into Ukraine from

Belarus, and hosting many variants of weapons systems that fire directly into Ukraine, Belarus is

acting directly on behalf of Russian interests. “In effect, the relationship between the two

countries is an antidemocratic alliance aimed at insulating Belarus from political

reforms.(Ambrosio, 2006)” . This symbiotic relationship between the two nations insulates Putin

from European western expansion and insulates Lukashenko from the rule of law. In both

countries, Media censorship, intimidation and propaganda allow these absolute dictators to keep

the system running. Putin has consistently given Lukashenko political cover in response to

Western criticism of Belarus’s flawed and undemocratic elections. “Parliamentary elections in

October 2000 and March 2001 solidified Lukashenka’s power and increased Belarus’s

international isolation.”(Ambrosio, 2006)

The amount of corruption and organized crime in Russia is truly staggering. Even the

leadership of the country just doesn't know how deeply woven these flaws are in the Russian

government. With billions of rubles being siphoned out of every nook and cranny of Russian

society and into the pockets of men so rich it's difficult to comprehend. Russian people have

experienced generations of trauma from Stalin, the second world war, and the systemic brutal

oppression of its own people for decades. With the population of Russia and the infrastructure

already developed, the potential for Russia to be a free democratic society is threatened until

Putin's totalitarian regime ends. The system of government in Russia is beyond repair. For

Russians to experience the government they deserve, serious constitutional reforms and the

reallocation of power would be needed as corruption is no longer a side effect of the system, it

has become the system. When comparing Russia to the international community the threat of

Russian aggression of sovereign nations has never been higher. Even during the cold war there
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was no room for expansion due to the tense post war attitude of NATO and western europe. Even

with large international organizations dedicated to defending Europe and helping victims of

authoritarian governments the threat of aggression, Putin has so far remained “untouchable” as

far as Russia being held accountable for their actions. From war crimes in Bucha to the

annexation of Crimea, Russia is a serious threat to not just Ukraine but to the whole international

community.
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Annotated Bibliography

Bennett Ramberg, Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament: A History, Political Science Quarterly,

“This text I used to conduct my research on the inheritance of Ukraines infrastructure and
industries and Nuclear disarmament. Ramberg describes as when the soviet union collapsed in
1991 Ukraine found itself in a very unique situation where they inherited the third largest nuclear
arsenal in the world. Instead of keeping them Ukraine returned the thousands of warheads in
exchange for a non- aggression agreement”

Ross, C. (2005). Federalism and electoral authoritarianism under Putin.

“This article by C.Ross explains political diversity and federalism in Russia. Russia practices
federalism due to there being a strong central government controlling all aspects of Russian
society. The article also explains how this political diversity can vary from region to region and
have significant influence over Putin's approval ratings”

Wood, E. A., Pomeranz, W. E., Merry, E. W., & Trudolyubov, M. (2015). Roots of Russia's war
in Ukraine. Columbia University Press.”
“This article by E.A.Wood W.E Pomeranz E.W Merry and M.Trudolyubov describe key motives
for the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine and likely motivating factors. They claim large
reserves of crude oil in the Ukrainian Donbass region, The remaining infrastructure of the Soviet
Union, the lush farmland all as motivating factors and causes for the invasion.”
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Person, R., & McFaul, M. (2022). What Putin fears most. Journal of Democracy, 33(2),
18-27. “In this Article R. Person and M. McFaul explains how Vladimir Putin wants the west
to believe that NATO is responsible for his “Special Military Operation” and how the
expansion of NATO is a direct threat to Russia. They claim that his philosophy is “flawed”
due to NATO being a variable not a threat, also that Russia in the past has recognised
Ukraines right to join NATO.”

Guriev, S., & Rachinsky, A. (2005). The role of oligarchs in Russian capitalism. Journal of
Economic Perspectives, 19(1), 131-150.
“Sergei Guriev and Andrei Rachinsky describe in this academic journal, the relationship between
wealth distribution and political power within Russia. Also how the Oligarchy in Russia has far
more political influence on the Kremlin. This article also describes the current economy within
Russia and how the economy has shaped some of Russia’s most prestigious intstitutions.”

Ambrosio, T. (2006). The Political Success of Russia-Belarus Relations: Insulating Minsk from a
Color Revolution. Demokratizatsiya, 14(3). “This article T. Ambrosio explains how the
Russia-Belarus relationship has coun-tered external forces that have been shown to promote
democratization. The Article is focused on two key Questions: According to the democratization
literature, what external factors make democratization more likely, and how have ties with
Belarus impacted these factors?”