Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a tragic reminder that kleptocracy kills

In 2015, a fire at the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest killed 27 people. Over the months following the accident, 37 additional people died from infections caused by the use of diluted medical disinfectant in the Romanian hospitals where they were treated. As the Oscar-nominated documentary “Collective” chronicles, the company producing the substandard solution bribed public officials and hospital managers to get their products in medical facilities across the country. In the days following the tragedy, with the public still not knowing the details and conditions of what happened in the emergency rooms, thousands of citizens took to the streets of Romania carrying banners that said, “Corruption Kills.” 

The Colectiv fire shined an international spotlight on the negative — nay, deadly — consequences of corruption well beyond the familiar economic, social and political harms. The tragedy in Romania illustrates how corruption can provoke the loss of human lives. Today, the devastation brought about by Russia’s offensive in Ukraine is proof that systemic grand corruption, or kleptocracy, can kill on a grand scale.  

{mosads}The Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin has become a living example of the textbook definition of kleptocracy, a system where corruption is used to achieve political objectives with the aid of a transnational network of enablers. Since his rise to power, Putin has consolidated domestic power and projected influence abroad by weaponizing corruption to secure the support of economic elites internally and co-opt the political systems of countries from around the world. 

Putin has attained his objectives by deploying the kleptocrat’s playbook: In addition to arbitrarily disposing of state assets to favor cronies, silencing dissent and jailing opponents, under his direction the Kremlin also has utilized other tactics, including vexatious lawsuits against reporters and whistleblowers abroad, the bribing of foreign public officials, and far-reaching reputation laundering campaigns. Most abhorrent, his regime is suspected to have ordered the killing of multiple critics willing to denounce the state’s corruption.

Yet, it would be reductionist to suggest that the kleptocratic nature of the Russian state is the reason that more than 3 million people have been forced out of Ukraine and thousands have been killed. None of the classic kleptocratic plays employed by Putin and his cronies sufficiently explain Russia’s waging of a deadly war. Just as corruption does not always lead to death, most kleptocracies do not engage in wars — at least in the traditional sense. That said, violence is an inherent tool to kleptocratic governance.

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Kleptocracy enables aggression in three principal ways. First, by entrenching a kleptocratic class that is invested in maintaining their economic access, kleptocracy limits the capacity of the elites to provide a check on government. Even in authoritarian contexts, there is a certain degree of accountability. In most dictatorships, groups that could include a powerful military, the clergy, or an independent oligarchy limit the sphere of what the leader of a country can do. In kleptocratic systems, the intertwined nature of political and economic power and the capacity to park and access wealth abroad — thanks to bank secrecy laws, beneficial ownership arrangements and “golden visas” — increases the autonomy of the kleptocratic class vis-à-vis their domestic market. 

This, in turn, reduces the incentives for those close to power to risk their status by confronting a decision from the top, since ultimately their economic standing is somewhat disconnected from the economic performance of the country. As a result, when a decision to go to war is made in a kleptocracy, few are willing and able to push back.

At the same time, kleptocracy is a zero-sum game in which there is little room for growing the pie without empowering new actors who might jeopardize the standing of the insiders. This is particularly true in the face of real or perceived threats to the status quo, which might push second-tier elites to support embarking on dangerous projects that could be seen as offering the prospect of pecuniary gain. In the case of Putin’s Russia, the offensive in Ukraine would have been less about increasing access and more about preventing Ukrainians from breaking away with the Russian kleptocracy and its tentacles in Kyiv.

{mossecondads}Lastly, kleptocracy can make war even more devastating by forcing military decisions that ultimately can prolong the duration of the war or its lethality. There have been reports of poorly maintained equipment, expired or insufficient food supplies, and shortages of fuel and other basic inputs. Instead of investments in defense systems and equipment, longstanding corruption has weakened the hardware capacity of the Russian military to overwhelm a less equipped army. Ultimately, the escalation in lethal tactics that utilize weaponry more indiscriminately on civilians may be the result of stalled battalions and itinerant tankers.  

The invasion of Ukraine is a tragic reminder that kleptocracy, the turbocharged version of corruption, exacerbates the corrosive effects of state abuse, turning the absence of accountability into a criminal enterprise. In certain conditions, the violent nature of kleptocracy can morph into war. The Ukrainians are experiencing this escalation in the flesh. 

It is time to recognize the enormous human cost of kleptocracy and demand sustained transnational coordination to seize the ill-gotten assets from kleptocrats all over the world. The unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia must be accompanied by structural reforms of the systems that allow the money inside in the first place.

Eguiar Lizundia is a senior adviser for governance and anti-corruption at the International Republican Institute.