Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at government anti-corruption meet

Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in a meeting of the government Anti-Corruption Council urging members to come up with a plan to combat the common occurrence of bribe taking in the state sector, the local media reported on Oct.30.

“According to the Russian leader, the size of kickbacks [that] civil servants demand and get from businessmen for lucrative contracts can reach 30 or even 50 percent of the overall price,” internet news portal RT.com wrote. “Putin also said that in some Russian regions there were well known tariffs for various bribes that were even indexed to keep up with the inflation.”

The president asked council members for suggestions on combating bribe taking, adding that anti-corruption laws in Russia are too lenient. Putin cited statistics which imply that due to legal loopholes only a small percentage of those charged with accepting bribes end up behind bars.

The president’s words mark another step forward in the battle against corruption launched in Russia following a wave of scandals, which swept through the Kremlin in 2012, resulting in a number of high profile resignations

Russian Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov resigned from office in November 2012, as an investigation into corrupt real-estate transactions was launched. A few days later Yuri Urlichich, head of Russia’s flagship global positioning system, was dismissed when a Ministry of Interior investigation discovered fraud in the project for at least RUB 6.5 bln [USD 200 mln].