Putin keeps backing Russia up: Our view

A report released this month by the World Anti-Doping Agency about Russian athletes and Russian drug-testing certainly makes for interesting reading.

It describes how athletes had impersonators take their drug tests for them and paid bribes to avoid positive test results. It shows how secret police agents intimidated personnel at testing labs and sometimes were employed by those those labs. And it describes an infuriating incident in which 1,400 samples were destroyed shortly before they were to be turned over to international testing authorities.

All in all, it’s a portrait of a Russia that has gone back to its bad old Soviet ways, when Olympic medals were to be won at all cost as part of a global propaganda war.

It is also a metaphor of sorts, for how President Vladimir Putin has reversed Russian progress in political and economic affairs, not just sporting ones. A nation that was once moving toward full engagement with the West and was home to fairly robust news media is increasingly isolated and autocratic.

Under Putin, Russia has engaged in heavy-handed military interventions in Syria and Ukraine and cracked down on free expression at home. A sports system that routinely cheats is a part of this disturbing new Russia.

Russia will examine all conclusions: Other views

Whether the cheating is a concerted effort to increase national prestige, or merely an outgrowth of domestic cronyism and corruption, is hard to know. What is clear is that this is just the latest example of a country in a state of regression.

At the very least, Russian athletes in track and field, where the abuses were rife, should be kept out of next summer’s Olympic Games unless Russian authorities come clean about past transgressions and make major changes. The track-and-field athletes are under a provisional suspension that could be lifted before next year's Olympics.

Since the report came out Nov. 9, the Russians have been going through the motions of reform. On Tuesday Nikita Kamaev, head of Russia's anti-doping agency, stepped down, following in the footsteps of the head of the nation's largest testing lab, who resigned a couple of weeks earlier.

Putin has promised a thorough investigation but undermined its credibility by insisting that the inquiry be conducted entirely by Russian authorities. He also equated the Russian situation to other instances of doping around the world.

It's true that numerous nationals of other countries have been caught doping. The list in bicycle racing, for instance, stretches well into the hundreds and includes Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis and other lesser known Americans. Even in a sport as compromised as cycling, however, the transgressions have rarely gone above the level of individual athletes.

The Russian findings are something different. They suggest the kind of systematic, state-sanctioned abuse not seen since the Cold War, when the Soviet Union, East Germany and other Warsaw Pact nations set out to demonstrate their superiority by winning at competitions they had rigged.

There is absolutely no reason that should be tolerated today. Russia needs the Olympics more than the Olympics need Russia. This needs to be made abundantly clear to Putin. If he gets this blunt message about acceptable conduct maybe, just maybe, he will see that it applies well beyond the world of sports.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

To read more editorials, go to the Opinion front page or sign up for the daily Opinion e-mail newsletter.