The current sanctions policy against Russia does not lead to changes in the behavior of the elites supporting the war and may even strengthen their position. Experts from Transparency International Russia came to this conclusion in their new report “War and Corruption. Corruption-related causes and consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has sparked much debate about whether corruption was the root cause of the war and how it affected the military’s effectiveness. Experts believe that the system of power in Russia, organized through corruption, essentially led to the conflict. This structure allowed a small group of people to take control of most of the country’s resources.
The war showed the extremely low readiness of the Russian armed forces for it. It is impossible to establish precisely what played a crucial role in the degradation of the army – theft, the incompetence of the commanding staff, or the fundamental impossibility of preparing for a conflict of such a scale. But one thing is clear: thefts in the RF Armed Forces can amount to at least a percentage of the annual defense budget, tens of billions of rubles.
According to the study, during the war, corruption manifested itself at three levels: everyday, administrative, and elite-global. Contrary to popular belief, sanctions unexpectedly contributed to increased corruption within the country, especially at the domestic and organizational levels.
Every day, corruption was manifested in thefts by lower-ranking military personnel and bribes in military registration and enlistment offices. Transparency experts suggested that law enforcement agencies have been given a zero-tolerance policy for such bribes, which has led to a noticeable decrease in bribery in this area, at least at the time of finalizing the report. Administrative corruption, in turn, was expressed in violations in government procurement and interactions between government agencies and businesses.
Elite corruption is linked to Russia’s top leadership and oligarchs, some of whom benefited from military contracts and property reorganizations – the very people targeted by sanctions. But instead of changing their behavior, they, on the contrary, confirmed their support for Vladimir Putin.
The report emphasizes that the West’s current policy on sanctions against Russia has a significant flaw: it does not offer incentives or positive measures (carrots) that could motivate change. This means that although sanctions (stick) are used to exert pressure, there is no balance between punishment and reward in this system that can stimulate the desired changes.
Read the full report in Russian:
“War and Corruption. Corruption-related causes and consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.
