ARKHANGELSK, March 30. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin is certain that corruption must be fought against, but using this theme for achieving political aims before elections is wrong.
"The only thing that I consider wrong is a situation in which some political forces try to use all these instruments not for improving the situation in the country, but for their selfish interests, for self-advertising in the political scene ahead of certain political events, including an election campaign," he said at a meeting of the full-scale meeting of the forum The Arctic - the Territory of Dialog.
Putin recalled that the same tactic was used at the beginning of the Arab Spring, which triggered a chain of sanguinary events in the region and was one of the factors behind the government coup in Ukraine.
"Therefore I say YES to the struggle against corruption and NO to the use of this instrument for narrow, selfish political aims. All those who step beyond the bounds of that law must be punished under Russian legislation," he said.
Putin said that the authorities were systematically pressing for struggle against corruption.
"We have been doing this and the people around the country see this," he said, adding that the struggle against corruption must remain in the focus of the public’s attention and that he was positive about the people’s attention to these problems.