Russians think that the most adequate measures to fight against bribery among individuals and organizations are to impose fines, to ban from holding leadership positions and carrying out public procurement, Russians say.

MOSCOW, January 18, 2017. Russian Public Opining research Center (VCIOM) presents the results of a survey describing the Russian attitudes towards corruption.

Scandalous arrests of persons on the corruption and fraud charges over the recent one year and a half have drawn wide response at the federal level and have won public approvals. More than half of Russians approve of the arrests of the former governors, namely Gayzer (55%), Belykh (60%), Khoroshavin (62%), as well as the former MIA colonel Dmitry Zekharchenko (66%) and the former minister responsible for the agricultural development Alexey Ulyukaev (67%). The share of non-approvals of their arrests is small: from 2 to 4%.

Asked about measures to be taken against corrupted persons, 38% of Russians propose to impose fines. Other appropriate measures include a ban to hold decision-making positions (28%), imprisonment (20%), confiscation of property (19%), et cet.

As to organizations that were suspected of corruption (bribery), fines are considered to be the most adequate measure too (34%), but the best measure would be to probe into organization’s activities for corruption (37%). Twenty per cent of Russians propose to introduce imprisonment for the head of organization.

According to the Medialogia Company analysis, the top five corruption-related events* mentioned in mass media in 2016 were the arrest of the Minister of Economic Development Alexey Ulyukaev (4672.24), criminal charges against Nikita Belykh (2129.83),  the arrest of the  head of the “T” department “of the General Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Russian MIA Dmitry Zakharhenko (1612.29),  Richard McLaren’s report on doping exposing high levels of corruption in the Russian sport  (929.37), as well as multibillion bribery allegations against the former Komi Republic leaders Mikhail Slobodin, General Director of Vimpelcom, Evgeny Olkhovik, Renova company Chief Managing Director, and Boris Vainzikher, “T Plus” PJSC General Director  (904.12).

*Event rating is based on the Medialogia metric – event visibility - defined as the sum of mentions on certain topic in the most popular media.

The VCIOM survey was conducted in December 17-18, 2016 in 130 settlements, 46 regions and 8 federal districts of Russia. The sample size involved 1600 persons. The survey was conducted with multi-stage stratified sample based on general rule of walking and quotas at the final selection stage; the sample is representative of the Russian population aged 18 and over according to sex, age, education, type of settlement.  The margin of error (taking into account the design effect) with 95% confidence interval does not exceed 3.5%. The survey method is community-based structured face-to-face interviews. Apart from the margin of error, minor changes in question wording and different circumstances arising during the field work should be taken into account.

The Russian mass media analysis and monitoring of publication were carried out by the Medialogia Company using the Medialogia database including 37200 sources such as television, radio, newspaper, information agencies and online media. The period of study took place from January to December 2016. 

Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM, the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory! The use of the Medialogia system content, fully or partially, must be accompanied by the reference to the Medialogia Company.