More than Their Elders, Younger Russians View Corruption as ‘Normal’ and Even Acceptable and are Less Willing to Cooperate in Struggle against It, Moscow Sociologist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – Russians aged 18 to 23, that is those born in the Putin years, are more inclined to view corruption as something entirely “normal” and to accept many forms of it as acceptable than are members of older age groups, according to Yana Ardelyanova of the Moscow Institute of Sociology.

            The Russian scholar says that this is the case if one looks beyond the near universal willingness of people to say that corruption is wrong in principle and recognizes that this is part of a growing lack of trust in the government and social institutions (ng.ru/economics/2026-08-24/1_4_9566_corruption.html).

            Even worse than their willingness to view corruption as somehow part of life now, Ardelyanova says, young people are more willing to take part in corrupt schemes than are their elders because they view many forms of corruption like paying off professors or doctors for preferred treatment as quite normal.

            She says that this represents “a clear decline” among young Russians “regarding the values of service to the state and society” and even “a crisis of trust in state and public institutions, the result among other things of the digital environment in which informal leaers such as bloggers are displacing that of officials.”

            According to the report about the sociologist’s findings published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, other polls and scholarly investigations provide additional support for her conclusions, making this finding far more likely to be true and thus far more worrying than many might be inclined to think.