Page 6 - RusRPTJune18

2.0 Politics
2.1 Small scale corruption down four-fold
Russian corruption has fallen four-fold in the last two years on the basis of the amount of bribes paid, the Supreme Court reported reported on May 4.
Corruption fell for the second year in a row, according to the statistics of the Russian Supreme Court, Vedomosti reported.
Until 2015, the number of Russians convicted of corruption-related crimes has steadily increased and doubled in three years from 6,014 in 2012 to 11,499 in 2015.
But in 2016, the start of the economic recovery and the resumption of a rise in real incomes, the numbers started to decline again. By 2017 the change in the trend became obvious: 9489 people were convicted in 2017 on corruption charges, almost 14% less than a year earlier.
The fall was driven by a fall in the number of people offering bribes: 5,216 people were convicted of giving bribes in 2015 and this figure was three times the number of bribe-takers (many of whom were caught in sting operations). The number of people convicted on the same charges fell to only 1099 bribe-takers in 2017 and a total of 1231 bribe-takers.
Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika says the number of corrupt officials has fallen by a third in the first half of 2017 compared to the same period of the previous year. But Chaika was confused as he says nothing substantial has changes to drive the change.
The most reasonable explanation for what is happening is changes in the methodology of statistical accounting and procedural legislation , Vedomosti reports.
Since July 2016 the categorization of bribes up to RUB10,000 were transferred to “crimes of small gravity.” In this case the there are limits on searches by police, eavesdropping, amongst other things so less perpetrators are caught or convicted.
Indeed, in 2015, according to the Supreme Court, 3,443 people were convicted for giving a bribe of up to RUB10,000 in 2015, or 66% of the total number of bribers. By 2017, their number has decreased by more than 10 times - to 233, but the cases of giving a bribe worth more than RUB100,000 has grown from 734 in 2015 to 1,026 in 2017.
2.2 Advertising market in Ukraine and Russia is booming
In 2017, the Russian and Ukrainian advertising market reached their highest growth rate of the last three years , according to the weCAN advertising agency.
Following a 10% decrease in 2015 and a 11% increase in 2016, the net advertising spending in Russia grew by 14% last year, reaching RUB417bn (€6bn). Meanwhile, the Ukrainian ad market continued on an astonishing growth path: after a period of stagnation in 2015 and a 27% increase in 2016, it recorded a growth of 29% amounting to UAH16bn (€540mn) last year.
6 RUSSIA Country Report June 2018 www.intellinews.com