The article focuses on corruption as a factor accompanying a sustainable development. Our UN SDG reports analysis revealed two trends. The first one is that the data on the fight against corruption is not presented, i.e. there are no indicators for task 16.5. The second one is that the reporting assessment methodology has not been discussed in practice, and the fight against corruption is not reflected in the UN Consolidated Reports for 2019 and 2020. We think this is unacceptable, particularly in relation to Russia. The publication methodological basis is based on three directions in the study of corruption. The first one (classic) justifies the role of corruption as a factor that destroys the social order and withdraws huge amounts of money from the development resource base (country, region). The second is a modern trend that analyzes the methods of its adequate assessment. The third is the current methods and of the UN and OECD (2020) recommendations analysis on improving the collecting methods and evaluating indicators. The publication substantiates the role of the fight against corruption as a condition for the country and the region sustainable development and suggests tightening the requirements for its inclusion in national voluntary reports. It is proposed to strengthen control over open information on the websites of the Russian Federation regions.