— Last year saw several outrageous corruption cases come to light: the possible involvement of Interior Ministry employees in the theft of 5 billion rubles from the state budget, the “Daimler case,” which involves government agencies, and possible embezzlement during the construction of the ESPO pipeline (Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline). These stories became public, but what happens next? Don’t you think that covering such high-profile cases is necessary to create an anti-corruption climate in society?
— It is necessary not only to cover such cases, but to see them through to the end and keep the public informed about them. In some instances, I admit, that may not be something people are very eager to do. For example, in the “Daimler case,” as I have been told, the Russian side was not given information about the specific individuals who may have enriched themselves through equipment procurement. Nevertheless, there is some prospect in this case: intermediaries have been identified and are being held accountable. Whether they shared anything with government officials remains to be proven. If investigators can “break” them and they testify against officials from the Defense Ministry or the Federal Protective Service, those officials will go to prison. That is the current state of the investigation. The other matters you mentioned also require scrutiny. **There has been a lot of noise around ESPO, but so far I have seen no evidence. But since the issue has attracted public attention, there must be a full investigation into all the circumstances. Both by law enforcement agencies and by the Accounts Chamber (Russia’s state audit body). Let them get to work. And the public absolutely must be kept informed.
**/////////////
So now both out of the same box members of the tandem have declared the need for a public investigation.
That line — “so far I have seen no evidence” — is, of course, a little troubling.
Maybe the now-famous “Transneft documents submitted to the Accounts Chamber” just won’t load on the president’s iPad? Or maybe there’s some issue with the fonts? Or perhaps the internet in the Kremlin is slow, and since the “documents” are 17 megabytes, Medvedev simply hasn’t seen them.
It’s all written there. With signatures and seals. How much more evidence could there be?
Of course, one could make the investigation conditional on my providing video footage of Tokarev and Vainshtok sitting in a room, counting bundles of cash, and having a conversation like this:
*- Well, Nikolai, we really did pull off an especially large-scale theft through fraud and abuse of trust!
Yes, Semyon, if we had not intentionally committed this criminal act under Parts 3 and 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code, we wouldn’t have ended up with all this money that we now need to launder by investing in real estate in various countries!
Alas, I do not have evidence of that kind. I would prefer that the police, the FSB, the Investigative Committee, the prosecutor’s office, and the rest of this army of idlers in uniform with flashing lights concern themselves with gathering evidence.
In any case, as people like to say, “the signal is positive.”
We’ll see how well the prosecutor’s office picks up these signals. So far, judging by the fact that the case is being kicked down to the level of the Central Administrative District prosecutor’s office, the only things they seem to pick up are money parcels sent over from Transneft.