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Part 10: Legitimacy

Chapter 45: The Yashina Gambit

Irina Yashina’s temporary headquarters for the new Anti-Corruption Bureau was a collection of bare-walled rooms in a disused university building, still smelling of chalk dust and old books. It was here that she reviewed the first fruits of her new, sweeping authority.

An investigator, a young man with the hungry eyes of a wolf, laid a file on her desk. “Prosecutor,” he said. “The first reconstruction contracts for the border bridge. The international wire transfers don’t match the published tenders.”

The file detailed a series of “facilitation payments” from a German construction firm, funneled through a shell company in Cyprus. The shell company was owned by Andrei Turgenev, the charismatic and widely admired Deputy Minister for Reconstruction. Turgenev was a star of the new government, a man who had lost his own family’s fortune to the old regime, and whose passionate speeches about rebuilding were a cornerstone of Voronkov’s public message.

Yashina’s investigation was a swift and silent blade. Using the ACB’s new, constitutionally-granted powers, her team bypassed the old bureaucracy entirely. The evidence was absolute and heartbreakingly common. Turgenev had been soliciting kickbacks, telling himself it was the only way to cut through the remaining red tape and get the vital bridge built quickly. He was, in his own mind, a pragmatist. But the money he was skimming was rebuilding the fortune he had lost. He was a good man doing a very bad, very old thing.

Yashina went to Voronkov’s office herself. She placed the thin, damning file on his desk. It was her first major case. It was a political grenade.

Voronkov read the summary, his face growing grim. “Andrei is a good man,” he said, looking up at her. “He is effective. This will be a political disaster. The reconstruction is the one thing that is working. Are you absolutely certain of this?”

Yashina’s gaze was like cold iron. “The evidence is absolute,” she said. “He is a good man using the tools of the criminals we just deposed. This is your first test, Alexei, not mine. Do you want a government that is ‘effective’ in the old way, or one that is clean in the new way? Because I am telling you now, you cannot have both.”

The next morning, two of Yashina’s investigators, dressed in sober business suits, walked into the Ministry of Reconstruction. They entered Deputy Minister Turgenev’s office, where he was in the middle of a meeting, and arrested him. They were polite. They were professional. They were implacable. The news spread through the corridors of the new government like a shockwave.

Viktor Orlov was in a meeting with his corporate accountants when his aide brought him the news on a tablet. A visible chill went down his spine. He dismissed the others. He picked up his secure phone. “Review everything,” he told his chief financial officer. “Every single transaction for the last five years. There are no more ‘grey areas.’ The game has changed. Burn the old books. Now.”

In his dreary office at the Ministry of Administrative Affairs, Pavel Ivanovich heard the news and felt a tremor of pure, bowel-loosening terror. The petty bribes he took to “expedite” paperwork suddenly felt like capital crimes.

The state news channel, on direct orders from Voronkov, led its evening broadcast with the arrest. The anchor did not frame it as a scandal, but as a victory: the first, powerful proof that the new Anti-Corruption Bureau was working, that the promise of a state subject to the rule of law was not just a slogan.

Irina Yashina watched the broadcast from her office. She felt no triumph. Only the grim, weary satisfaction of a surgeon who had just made the first, deep, and painful incision required to cut a cancer from the body of the state. She had sent her message. The old rules were dead.

The Discourse, 45: The Strategic Importance of Demonstrative Justice

Section 45.1: The Theory of "Demonstrative Justice"
The arrest of Andrei Turgenev is a classic example of "demonstrative justice." In a state transitioning away from a culture of endemic corruption, the first target of a new anti-corruption body is of immense symbolic importance. If the first target is a low-level, politically insignificant figure, it signals that the new institution is weak and will not challenge the real structures of power. However, by targeting a popular, high-level insider—a "friend" of the new government—the institution sends an immediate and powerful message throughout the entire system that the old rules of impunity are truly dead. This single, high-profile act has a greater deterrent effect than a thousand low-level arrests.

Section 45.2: The "Good Man, Bad System" Dilemma
Turgenev's character highlights a core dilemma of anti-corruption efforts. He is not a purely evil actor, but a well-intentioned man who has adopted the corrupt methods of the old system out of a sense of pragmatism ("it's the only way to get things done"). This is a common and insidious justification for graft. Yashina's refusal to accept this justification is a critical moment. It establishes the principle that process is as important as outcome. A new, clean state cannot be built using the dirty tools of the old one. By arresting a "good man" who has done a bad thing, she is making a clear statement that the system itself, not just the individuals within it, is the target of the reform.

Section 45.3: Voronkov's "High-Risk, High-Reward" Gambit
Voronkov’s decision to support the arrest, despite the immense political cost, is a high-risk, high-reward strategic gamble. In the short term, it is a disaster: it creates a "scandal" in his government, removes an effective minister, and provides ammunition to his enemies. However, in the long term, the rewards are immense. First, it cements the credibility of the ACB in the eyes of the public and international investors, who are now more likely to believe the new Russia is a safe place to do business. Second, it sends a powerful wave of fear through the corrupt "deep state" (as seen with Orlov and Pavel), making them less likely to engage in future corruption. Finally, it confirms his own credentials as a sincere reformer. By choosing to uphold the rule of law over his own short-term political convenience, he passes the ultimate test of his leadership.