‘I’m not your boss, I’m your commander’

Russian officials are picking up bad habits in occupied Ukraine, where corruption and impunity reign

Russian regional governments and presidential envoys’ offices are concerned about the behavior of multiple officials who have taken up positions in Russia after spending time working in occupied Ukrainian territory, Meduza has learned from four sources in the Russian government and two political consultants who work for Russian governors.

One of the biggest problems, according to the sources, is that officials in the annexed regions “learn to take an excessively liberal approach” when spending the federal budget funds allocated for the regions’ “recovery,” even by Russian civil service standards. One regional official referred to the occupied territories as a “real school of corruption.”

“They have more money than they know what to do with — and no supervision. Pulling off schemes is easy, and there are locals willing to help. Things are bad all around; they’re being shelled. It’s really easy to cover up missing money, even if it was flat-out stolen,” said a source familiar with the situation.

A source who works in a presidential envoy’s office said that the lack of supervision over budget expenditures in the occupied regions is no surprise, because security officials there have bigger problems: “[They have to] deal with [Ukrainian] agents, so everything else is an afterthought.” Additionally, he said, people are generally not eager to go to occupied Ukraine, so officials “turn a blind eye” to signs of corruption.

Meduza’s sources also said that officials tend to “lose their fear” after working in the occupied regions. The result is that when they return to Russia, they start trying to “appropriate” more funds from the federal budget than is generally accepted. “We end up having to stop them, to talk them out of it,” said one source.

Another source said that the reverse also happens: some officials who either fear corruption charges or who have already been charged with corruption take positions in the occupied territories as a way to avoid prosecution. One example is Sergey Kharlashkin, the vice governor of Russia’s Leningrad region. Kharlashkin was jailed on corruption charges in October after the Russian Agricultural Bank reported missing funds. Later, however, the bank withdrew its complaint, and Kharlashkin went to the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” to oversee “infrastructure restoration.” A source close to the presidential envoy’s office in the federal district that contains Kharlashkin’s region told Meduza that the vice governor decided to go “far away from the security forces so they wouldn’t come to him with any more questions.”

According to a source close to the Putin administration, stints in Ukraine’s annexed regions seem to cause significant behavioral changes in governors as well. At the moment, there are only two Russian governors who have worked in the occupied territories: Omsk Governor Vitaly Khotsenko, who was born in Dnipro and led the “Donetsk People’s Republic” for nine months, and Chukotka Governor Vladislav Kuznetsov, who served as the “deputy head” of the “Luhansk People’s Republic” for nine months.

“Both of them were ordinary, average officials. Nothing special. But after they returned [from working in the occupied territories], people started to complain. Locals were shocked by their new style,” said the source. According to him, both governors adopted a “quasi-military” communication style: “I’m not just your boss, I’m your commander. And you’re nobody. Bow down.” A source close to the presidential envoy’s office in Russia’s Siberian Federal District, which contains the Omsk region, confirmed that this is how Khotsenko now treats local officials and politicians.

One regional official told Meduza that many civil servants working in the occupied territories take on a “slight tone of contempt” when interacting with their colleagues. “It’s like, we took the fall for the motherland, and you sat at home,” said the source. “At the same time, it’s clear that these [officials] were primarily motivated by money. But they probably start feeling like they’re completing some special mission. Plus, the big bosses encourage this.”

Another source said that some officials return from jobs in Ukraine acting “like they can do whatever they want,” even when communicating with lawmakers. He said these officials believe that for the Kremlin, civil servants who have worked in the occupied territories belong to a “different category.”

A source close to the Kremlin told Meduza that many regional officials “lose their heads” after working in the occupied regions: “A person spends a few months there and he oversees a contract worth several million. Of course his outlook on life changes. Suddenly, you’re no longer a worthless bureaucratic lowlife; you’re a person who’s capable of things. You want to keep on living that way.”

At the same time, the source said he doesn’t think this pattern will become too serious a problem. “There aren’t too many officials like that. And if they get too bold, they’ll just get replaced,” he said.

Vitaly Khotsenko and Vladislav Kuznetsov had not responded to Meduza’s requests for comment at the time of this article’s publication.

Story by Andrey Pertsev. Translation by Sam Breazeale.