Casual observers of Russian politics could be forgiven for feeling confused. On the one hand Vladimir Putin, the president, portrays himself as the helmsman of a hallowed civilisation and a moral bulwark against the metrosexual West; on the other, his cronies seem constantly to be pillaging the country. The news seems to divide between ideological (and military) grandstanding and allegations of graft. Russia's government is not unique in combining lofty rhetoric with greasy palms. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, wants to restore the country's lost Ottoman grandeur and burnish public morality. He has restricted the sale of alcohol and tried to ban adultery. Yet confronted with evidence of ministers on the take, he purged the police and prosecutors instead of the government: not an obviously moral response.
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