IT LOOKED like a scene from a crime drama. First, the pictures of a burly Russian governor caught at a sushi restaurant in a swanky Moscow hotel, with wads of specially marked euros leaving fluorescent stains on his hands. Next, footage of the same governor in handcuffs, being escorted into the investigator’s office by balaclava-clad, Kalashnikov-wielding agents of the FSB, Russia’s secret police. The arrest on June 24th of Nikita Belykh, the liberal-minded governor of the Kirovsk region, was headline news on Russian state television. It even preceded the report on Vladimir Putin’s triumphal visit to China.
Mr Belykh is accused of receiving a €400,000 ($ 445,000) bribe and faces up to 15 years in jail. He has launched a hunger strike to protest against the charges. In the best Soviet tradition, the state media have reported his guilt long before any trial. Mr Belykh claims he was set up. He is the third governor in 15 months to be arrested on corruption charges; there have been similar arrests in Komi and Sakhalin. “This is the Kremlin’s new way of exercising control over regional elites,” says Kirill Rogov, a Russian political analyst.
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The Economist: Europe
