Corruption is Russia is widespread, but not out of control, the head of the Kremlin administration said in an interview on Wednesday.
“In medical terms, our society’s level of infection with this illness is extremely high, but we can not talk about a pandemic,” presidential administration chief Sergei Naryshkin told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government daily.
He also called into question the validity of international reports that indicate Russia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
The Berlin-based non-governmental anti-corruption organization Transparency International has persistently rated Russia one of the most corrupt nations in the world. In the 2009 Corruption Perception Index, Russia was ranked 146th of 180, below countries like Togo, Pakistan and Libya.
“I get the impression that the people who determine the places in such lists are doing so on certain subjective criteria not based on a scientific basis,” he said.
“Corruption is not an exclusively Russian problem,” he added.
