Vitaly Nevar / TASS
Written by our Russian reader, Vladimir K., exclusively for SouthFront
Another corruption scandal is developing in Russia making headlines in media.
On April 26, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court ordered to arrest the former deputy head of the bank department (“K” department) of the Economic Security Service of the Federal Security Service (FSB) Colonel Dmitry Frolov and his former subordinate, Colonel Andrei Vasilyev. According to reports, Frolov and Vasilyev, are accused of stealing 490 million rubles ($75.5 million) from a businessman locked in a court battle with Moscow’s former deputy mayor in 2011.
On April 25, the acting head of the “K” department, Colonel Kirill Cherkalin, was arrested by Garrison 235’s military court over charged for $850,000 bribery. According to investigators, Cherkalin received $850,000 in 2013-2015 “for acts or inactions in favor of the bribe-giver and commercial structures.”
According to reports, investigators seized 12 billion rubles in cash and other valuables. The investigation is still ongoing.
Meanwhile, some interesting tendencies revealing the current state of the so-called “Russian elites” and those describing themselves as “creative community” appeared in the media. These developments have an ugly form.
On May 27, a prearranged monologue of aged TV hosts, Dmitry Dibrov, made headlines in Russian media. Dibrov is the host of a show on the Russian Defense Ministry’s Zvezda TV channel.
According to the released recording, he had to record a script for a piece about color revolutions. Instead, he rejected to do so and ranted at his colleagues. Using abusive expressions, he claimed that he is supporting color revolutions and hope that the Americans would ‘rescue’ Russia. Dibrov stressed that he is supporting the “Ukrainains” (the Kiev regime) and Africans (powers opposing to Chinese and Russian presence in Africa). He also recalled the case of Cherkalin, Vasilyev and Frolov describing this as an echo of the “Stalin despotism”. This is especially hilarious. It is hard to expect that even 1/10 of the corruption observed in Russia would be possible in any kind of Stalin-like times.
There are some evidences that the pseudo-liberal values alongside with the consumerism are becoming a more and more attractive model of behavior within special services among personnel of the Russian special services.
The ongoing anti-corruption campaign is a positive example confirming anti-corruption efforts within the FSB and other government agencies. But the actions within the campaign are non-systemic. This situation displays the weakness of government bodies, which cannot provide a public, consistent and effective anti-corruption campaign.
The separate anti-corruption actions often cause large-scale media scandals drawing attention of the audience. However, mostly, court decisions in corruption cases appear to be soft. Perons accused in large corruption cases rarely get court penal custody sentences. There are no effective motives that can change the behavioral model of state bureaucrats.
During the house searches in the framework of the criminal case involving 3 FSB colonels, the investigation team found and seized 12 billion rubles in cash and other valuables. In this context, the rate of salary of the personal in different government bodies is surprising.
For example, officials at middle-level management positions in some local administration get a monthly income of about 300-500 USD, in police or agencies related to the fiscal system – 400-500 USD, in Moscow’s office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – about 600-700 USD.
The established system created conditions for a rent-seeking behavior. The ongoing anti-corruption efforts seem like attempts to deal with this fire by throwing a couple of glasses with water. For example, it appears to be a kind of a joke the ban for personnel of government bodies of taking small presents, like candies, being on duty. There are no effective motives that can change the behavioral model of state bureaucrats.
Another factor is the lack of any kind of real national or state ideology behind the declared priroty to increase personal wealth. No surprise that representatives of the top bureaucracy is working to do so exploiting the existing opportunities. Additionally, the officially declared and clear strategy of the state development does not exist in the public sphere. The Russians see no attractive image of future.
The top Russian elites, that self-describe themselves as the “new aristocracy”, have close ties with the global financial capital and work to promote so-called “neo-liberal” values, which they see as the “democratic world model”. In fact, they describe by these words the system, which would provide them with a maximum freedom of actions behind any legal or social limitation. In private conversations, these persons openly declare that this “democracy” is only for chosen ones: they and their close circle, including families. The rest of the society, they describe as “peasant” that exist to provide for the needs of the elite. A major part of “creative community” has the very same vision.
Many believe in Russia as one of the last bastion opposing to the emerging “neo-liberal” world order. However, in fact, representatives of the top Russian elite in many cases seem to be very similar to those people who had saturated the high society of the Russian Empire ahead of the revolution of 1917.
