Putin Accused of Plagiarizing His Dissertation

Vladimar Putin is accused of copying a large part of his dissertation from a management text:

Researchers peg Putin as a plagiarist over thesis, by David R. Sands, Washington Times: Vladimir Putin -- KGB spy, politician, Russian Federation president, 2006 host of the Group of Eight international summit -- can add a new line to his resume: plagiarist. Large chunks of Mr. Putin's mid-1990s economics dissertation on planning in the natural resources sector were lifted straight out of a management text published by two University of Pittsburgh academics nearly 20 years earlier ... "Somebody was cutting corners," said Mr. Gaddy, "whether it was Mr. Putin or whoever cut-and-pasted the work for him."  ... Mr. Putin's effort should be seen in a Russian, post-Soviet context, some scholars said. E. Wayne Merry ... at the American Foreign Policy Council, said dubious academic credential building was common in Eastern Europe and especially the old East Germany... "It was really quite common for an up-and-coming apparatchik to get a ghostwritten work done to obtain a degree," he said. "It's probably an open question whether Putin even read his dissertation until shortly before he had to defend it."...