The 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index map. Photo: Transparency International

Russia has been ranked joint 154th place alongside Azerbaijan, Honduras and Lebanon in the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), global anti-corruption NGO Transparency International announced on Tuesday.

Scoring just 22 of a possible 100 points, Russia’s worst ever result saw it drop even further down the rankings, after scoring 26 points to take 141st place alongside Guinea, Kyrgyzstan and Uganda last year.

The 2024 CPI’s overall focus was on the connection between corruption and the climate crisis, and Transparency International stressed that without improved anti-corruption measures, Russia could expect to see a repeat of disasters such as December’s oil spill in the Black Sea, which resulted in environmental devastation after two Russian oil tankers ran aground in stormy weather.

The least corrupt countries according to the 2024 rankings were Denmark, Finland and Singapore, while the three most corrupt countries were South Sudan, Somalia and Venezuela.

The CPI is compiled annually by Transparency International and ranks 180 countries according to perceptions of corruption in the public sector. Countries are ranked on a scale from 0 to 100, with 0 representing the highest level of perceived corruption and 100 the lowest.

Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declared Transparency International an “undesirable” organisation on 6 March 2023, justifying its decision by saying the organisation was managed by the “citizens of foreign countries”.