Dr. Robert W. Orttung speaks at the dream course lecture "Corruption and Russia's Resource-Based Economy" in the Oklahoma Memorial Union Tuesday evening. Amy Frost/The Daily

While the U.S. strives to become energy independent, resource-limited Europe relies heavily on Russian oil and natural gas, which is helping Russia move back onto the international stage.

Robert Orttung, senior fellow at the Jefferson Institute in Washington, D.C., spoke to OU students Tuesday evening in the Oklahoma Memorial Union about Russia’s relationships with foreign countries and the corruption within the country’s government.

“The basic idea of this lecture is the relationship between Russia’s energy to its political sphere,” Orttung said. “Though resource energy is a cause of corruption in Russia, it’s not the direct cause for it because it is not the only cause. The corruption would still be there even without their energy resources.”

Through Russia’s control over vast energy sources, it is once again trying to become a world power.

“Russia is becoming a focus of global politics because of its command over its large source of raw petroleum resources and its distribution,” political science assistant professor Paul Goode said. “Because of this, Russia is becoming a world power again with its relations to Europe and the East. This also means that along with the rise of this wealth, there is a rise in corruption among their politicians,”

While the U.S. has no connections to Russia’s energy resources, Europe is heavily dependent on its gas and oil lines.

Orttung said two-thirds of the world’s oil and natural gas is under Russian control, making Europe almost completely dependent on Russia for energy. Russia also is developing more oil and natural gas pipelines to China.

“Since the beginning of [Vladimir] Putin’s presidency, almost 50 percent of its budgetary, 65 percent of its exports and 25 percent of its overall GDP come directly from its oil and natural gas industry,” Orttung said.

While Russia’s recent power over energy sources has contributed to corruption within its government, the corruption began as early as 1996, according to the Freedom House Political Rights scale of government.

Orttung said that under Putin’s policy of increasing state control, Russia became more susceptible to corruption within the government, worsening an already unstable economy.

The Russian stock market crashed in May and has been plummeting ever since.

“Russia’s main oil fields are almost depleted, which led to investors losing their confidence in Russian energy and Russia’s stock market crashing,” Orttung said. “Then, with the Georgian War and the global economic crisis, its economy has yet to pick back up.”

Russia’s economic crisis is the worst in the world, with a 75 percent overall decrease, compared to 40 percent in the U.S.

“Thanks to Putin, Russia’s federal reserves has jumped from $20 billion to $600 billion, but is consistently losing $20 million a month and the reserves will not last another year if [Russia’s economic situation] doesn’t change,” he said.

Because of policies made during Putin’s presidency, Russia will continue to become more totalitarian as the economic crisis continues, he said.

“Russia is losing ground in its efforts to combat corruption and crime the deeper we get into the economic crisis, because of a lack of free press and opposition political parties,” he said. “This is not just a problem for Russia but, as Russia becomes more integrated into the global economy, a problem for everyone.”

Though Russia is economically worse off than other countries, the demand for its energy sources is not expected to diminish.

“Even with the possibility of the natural gas pipeline from Turkey to Greece, Europeans are stuck with Russia and that won’t change unless they try to cultivate other sources and alternative energy independence,” he said. “But that will not likely happen for another 20 to 30 years.”