More than two-thirds of Russians believe that President Vladimir Putin is "entirely" or "significantly" responsible for massive corruption among state officials, according to a new survey by the Levada Center.
The March 28 survey found that 79 percent of Russians believe corruption has "completely infected" or "significantly infected" Russia's organs of state power.
However, only 6 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that Putin will not seriously combat corruption because "he has a personal interest in it in one way or another."
Seventy-four percent said it was possible to either "completely" or "significantly" root out corruption, while only 21 percent said nothing could be done about the problem.
On March 26, tens of thousands of Russians in dozens of cities took to the streets to protest against rampant official corruption, just a few weeks after anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny published an extensive investigation into allegations of corruption by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
