The Kremlin’s war in Ukraine shows the price we all pay for kleptocracies. We now must fight against it

TOM TUGENDHAT 8 December 2022 • 9:23pm

In February, we saw what corruption truly costs – lives. Based on the flawed intelligence of corrupted spies, Russian troops launched a criminal invasion of Ukraine to protect a regime that has stolen from its own people for decades.

The failure was not just down to the extraordinary courage of the Ukrainian forces, but their own generals. Before the tanks had moved an inch, the heirs to Russia’s once-feared KGB had squirrelled away the millions supposedly spent on influence and intelligence.

The generals did the same with logistics. Senior military officers watered down the fuel and flogged the rest. They sold food and water and their men are now freezing. Even factories miles from the front have dumped supplies on the market in exchange for a fast buck.

The result – soldiers were sent to war underfed, under-gunned and under-prepared.

Those who sent them, from the president down, sit safe at home, getting rich while they are paying with their lives.

Cowardice and corruption are eviscerating a generation of Russians. They are not alone.

In Tehran, we’re seeing decades of theft and violence leading to protests and violence. While the people have suffered, the religious and military elites have enriched themselves. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military unit that runs the country, also owns it.

Across the world, graft is costing millions of lives and billions of pounds and undermining the rule of law and democracy. That’s bad for us all, because borders don’t contain corruption. It seeps out to poison the whole world.

We feel the poison here. From novichok and polonium attacks in Salisbury and London, to murders of those connected to the Kremlin kleptocrats, we know the cost of Vladimir Putin’s corrupt rule. And the dozen attacks Iran has tried in recent years have been the consequence of their own corrupt regime.

As the foreign affairs committee pointed out in 2018, Moscow’s gold is a threat to our national security. It erodes trust and it leaves us vulnerable.

The shadow world of secret accounts and unpaid dues is a hidden tax on us all. It allows our enemies to fund actions against us and weakens the institutions we need to protect us.

This government is working to end those threats and secure our markets.

Last week, the National Crime Agency delivered a powerful message to those connected to hostile states. In an operation conducted by the Combatting Kleptocracy Cell, officers arrested a Russian businessman in the latest activity targeting potential criminality by oligarchs, the professional service providers who support them and those linked to the Russian regime. We are closing Londongrad.

Friday is International Anti-Corruption Day, the anniversary of the passage of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption on Global Anti-Corruption Day, so we will mark it by announcing a new tranche of sanctions under the Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions regime.

They are part of our work to combat corruption worldwide and the effects it has on our own country. We will soon be publishing a new anti-corruption strategy and UK economic crime plan next year to signal our long-term commitment to this work, setting out actionable steps to drive further real-world change building on the Economic Crime Bill that we are taking through Parliament.

This isn’t just about government. Many businesses have a role to play to protect themselves and our economy. Private sector contributions through the new Economic Crime Levy will provide funding of £400 million over the next three years.

This is building on the most important reforms in 170 years to our company registration rules to protect us all.

Despite all the progress we are making, we can’t deliver alone. Global financial centres from Singapore to New York must cooperate to stop laundering the wealth of nations stolen by criminal regimes and corruption.

That’s where we are looking now. Working with important partners like the US and EU, we are looking at the vulnerabilities in the global financial system that allow corruption and illicit finance to mushroom.

Our agenda is simple – we’re looking to shine light on the darkest corners of the financial world and help people take back control of their own economies.

The tools we need are global. From the transparency of asset ownership to law enforcement capacity and cooperation, we need long-term investment and reform in many countries. Without openness, we will see corruption grow in the dark.

This year has shown the price we all truly pay for the kleptocracies like Russia. But we are not paying the highest price. In Ukraine, where power stations are leaving millions without heat and water, the real cost is there for all to see.

This year, we need to make our fight against corruption count. We have set a clear agenda, we must now help everyone to deliver.

………..

Comment from DT reader Andrew Park: “The brutal reality is that most Russians don’t give a damn about the horrors being inflicted on the people of Ukraine. For that reason, we shouldn’t waste much sympathy on the ordinary people of Russia. They’re suffering the fate they deserve for their callous indifference.”

Backwoods Man : “I am not sure I entirely believe that intelligent young Russians are anti Putin. I rather suspect that they are take in by the propoganda just as our young people are takin in by our transgender/ Gay/Covid/ climate change/BLM propaganda.”

Graham peacock : reply to Backwoods Man: “They are not taken in by the Russian propaganda. Less than 1.5% of Russians have left the building. The rest clear on the rape, murder and torture of Ukraine. Its a country of thugs. They must never be forgiven and allowed to re enter civilised global centres.”

Paul Wusteman: “Europe and elsewhere have experienced 400 years of Russian savagery, autocracy and Slavophile racist delusions about Russia’s supremacy over the West (deeply ingrained) and rights to Empire. The weird thing is that most Russians still believe all that. Russia has never had a Reformation or an Enlightenment, and it shows. The hard truth is that there is NO liberal faction in the wings waiting to take over and have a peaceful, normal relationship with the West. There just isn’t.

The best we can hope for is what we will achieve by the sanctions and isolation of Russia – the weakening an d collapse of the Russian state, its splitting up and an inability to present a military threat (maintaining nuclear weapons etc is very expensive).”

Jimi Hendrix: “Putin is the world’s most successful gangster. The amount of money he has stolen from the Russian people is eye-watering. Unfortunately they are mostly too dim or drunk to notice.”