Vladimir Vasilyev at meeting with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, October 3, 2017. Photo CC BY 4.0: Kremlin.ru. Some rights reserved.Should we welcome the anti-corruption campaign launched by Moscow in Russia’s regions? This question is no less ambiguous than this one: “Should we take part in the Russian presidential elections?” With both supporters and opponents of the recent election boycott armed equally with logical arguments, this is a hard one to answer. But the fact that the results were known in advance renders the discussion somewhat meaningless.
It’s a similar situation with Russia’s anti-corruption agenda. On the one hand, it’s obvious: corruption is an evil that must be eradicated by any lawful means. On the other, behind the good intentions of the Russian state lurks the ruinous prospect of a super-centralised Russian state. As with the country’s elections, Russian society is faced with the problem of its role in legitimising the methods of Kremlin rule.
Attack on the clans
Vladimir Putin’s unexpected visit to Dagestan on 13 March confirmed experts’ conjectures that the appointment of Vladimir Vasilyev as acting head of the republic last October was linked, among other things, to the forthcoming presidential elections.
