A minister has been dismissed, a regional leader arrested, billions of rubles embezzled: corruption scandals are piling up in Russia, but some interpret this as a decisive campaign to eradicate this evil while others believe it is a consequence of the struggle for supremacy at the very top of power, writes France Press on Tuesday.
In a few weeks, several scandals involving the highest officials in the state have come to light. A week ago, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov was dismissed after the Ministry of Defense became embroiled in a scandal over the alleged embezzlement of state property worth about 100 million US dollars. The sale was reportedly led by the company Oboronservis, which is under the control of the ministry.
A few days later, it was announced that 200 million dollars intended for the development of the GLONASS satellite navigation system, similar to the American GPS, had been embezzled, with authorities planning to spend at least 9.5 billion dollars by 2020. Subsequently, the head of the Perm government in the Urals, Roman Panov, was arrested on suspicion of embezzling 93 million rubles (2.3 million euros) during the preparations for the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in September in Vladivostok. Panov is a former deputy minister for Russian regions.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office also filed charges on Tuesday against several high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Health for entering into a detrimental contract for AIDS prevention. The amount agreed upon is considered “excessive” by the prosecutor’s office.
For analyst Alexei Panin, this is a sign that the Russian authorities have entered a new phase of the anti-corruption campaign. Elena Paniflova from Transparency International has a completely different opinion. She interprets this as a clan war within the same system following the parliamentary elections in 2011 and the presidential elections in 2012.
