WASHINGTON, March 26: Russian President Vladimir Putin plagiarized sections of an American management textbook in writing an economics dissertation a decade ago, The Washington Times newspaper reported. Putin, who wrote a 218-page paper on planning in the natural resources sector, reportedly lifted numerous passages directly from a management text published by two University of Pittsburgh academics, the paper claimed on Saturday, citing “research” by two scholars at the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington.

Putin, who obtained a doctorate degree in economics in 1997 from the St. Petersburg Mining Institute wrote his thesis on “The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations.”

After reviewing the document, Brookings researchers Clifford Gaddy and Igor Danchenko concluded that large sections of Putin’s dissertation were copied almost word-for-word from the 1978 management text “Strategic Planning and Policy,” by University of Pittsburgh professors William King and David Cleland.

Gaddy told the paper that 16 pages of Putin’s dissertation were taken either verbatim or with just minor alterations from the American work.—AFP