Michael Meadowcroft reminds us of the capitalist opportunism that ran riot through Russia in the 1990s leading to the rise of the oligarchs (Letters, 22 March). The BBC Sounds app currently has available all six series of GF Newman’s The Corrupted, the serial drama depicting institutional corruption of the police and politicians from the 1960s onwards and their links with criminal gangs.
The fifth series is set in the 1990s, and its antihero, the corrupt politician Sir Joseph Olinska, visits Moscow to push through a purchase of the Russian medical drugs company in partnership with his oligarch friend. He is roughed up by a character called Lebedev, and there is mention of an up-and-coming politician by the name of Putin.
The message of the series is that the webs of corruption cover long periods of time, that many players who are bound in by their own actions become ever more deeply enmeshed, and that none of our institutions is above suspicion. In the light of present circumstances it is instructive, depressing and highly entertaining.
Anne Cowper
Bishopston, Swansea
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