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Eastern Europe
February 1, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
Arashukov is he son of a powerful Gazprom executive, also called Raul Arashukov, who was also arrested on the same day at his office in the Gazprom building in St Petersburg, accused of embezzling more than RUB30bn ($454.8mn). The spectacular arrest of the Arashukov father and son is unprecedented in Russia where the wealthy and well connected are usually immune to attack. Clearly the arrest on the floor of the Federation Council was intentional and designed to send a message.
The government has become highly unpopular thanks to an austerity policy that has seen real incomes in Russia fall for five years in a row despite growth, a budget surplus, a record current account surplus and companies’ return to profit
in the last year. Arashukov’s arrest was partly designed to play to the gallery.
But it was also designed to play to the other members of the Federation Council and the
rest of the government. The Kremlin has been running a low profile anti-corruption campaign that has seen thousands of police officers sacked, regional governors arrested in sting operations, half a dozen Duma deputies indicted and even a sitting minister jailed. The campaign is not an anti-graft drive per se but an effort to cut down on the waste as the cash-strapped government looks to use what resources it has more efficiently. However, the inner-circle that surrounds President Vladimir Putin seem to remain exempt from this anti-graft drive.