Protesters light firecrackers and smoke bombs outside the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv on June 5, 2020, during a demonstration calling for the resignation of the Interior Minister over suspected corruption.
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Protesters light firecrackers and smoke bombs outside the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv on June 5, 2020, during a demonstration calling for the resignation of the Interior Minister over suspected corruption.
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KYIV, Ukraine — The recent ousting of top Ukrainian officials has renewed attention to the country’s decades-long battle against corruption.
Over several days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and members of the government’s Cabinet ordered the removal of more than a dozen advisers, deputy ministers, prosecutors and regional administrators from their posts.
At least three of the officers were implicated in various scandals revealed by the press. Ukrainian anti-corruption officers arrested one on bribery charges.
“We will never return to the way things were before, to the lifestyles that the bureaucrats were used to, to the old way of running for power,” Zelenskyy he said in a video address late Sunday at the beginning of stirring.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States is not aware of its assistance being involved in the allegations, but teams in Kyiv and Washington are working to ensure the help goes to its intended goals.
Here are some of the keys to understanding how Ukraine got to this point and what is being done about it.
It went from the Soviet Union to the wild west
When Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, control of the country’s economy shifted from the former communist leadership in Moscow to what watchdogs called “clans” — private ownership networks defined by intimidation, cronyism and crime. The free market that President George HW Bush encouraged The Ukraine he adopted during his visit to Kiev in 1991 ended up as a “wild west” of backdoor deals and power grabs as high as the president’s office.
“It was like the Middle Ages,” says Vasyl Zadvornyy, the former CEO of Prozorro, the public procurement agency of Ukraine. Several international monitoring groups have named Ukraine among the most corrupt countries in the World.
But after the Ukrainian police responded to small demonstrations in favor of Europe with excessive force in 2013, millions of Ukrainians took to the streets seeking answers after government violence.
“It became extremely clear how much corruption has damaged institutions,” says Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics. After months of protests culminated in further police brutality, then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, himself A member of the “Donetsk Klan,” fled the country.
A visitor to a collection of antique cars at Mezhyhirya, the former private estate of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, in Novi Petrivtsi, Ukraine. After Yanukovych fled in 2014, the extravagant property was opened to the public and returned to state ownership.
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A visitor to a collection of antique cars at Mezhyhirya, the former private estate of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, in Novi Petrivtsi, Ukraine. After Yanukovych fled in 2014, the extravagant property was opened to the public and returned to state ownership.
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Immediately afterwards, Russia invaded Ukraine and supported separatist movements in the Donbas region. Mylovanov says the episode revealed how corrupt practices have eroded Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.
“The security services didn’t do anything. They just weren’t able to,” he says. Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 in less than a month without firing a shot. Ukrainians reached in their own pockets to defile the military arsenal again, emptied by years of theft and bad contracts.
“A new community of civil society watchdogs has been established to provide a high level of transparency and accountability,” says Zadvornyy.
In 2015, his group worked with activists, software programmers and the Ukrainian government to unveil a brand new public procurement system called Prozorro, which means “transparent” in Ukrainian. Meanwhile, all elected and appointed officials had to disclose all their finances or face heavy penalties.
“Access to our records is much wider than in the United States,” says Vitaliy Shabunin, the head of Ukraine. Anti-Corruption Action Centernon-governmental organization in Kiev.
A detailed database increases scrutiny
Until 2016, Ukraine’s parliament forced businesses and government agencies to use Prozorro and reveal thousands of details from every transaction, down to the cost of a pencil in a rural school district, the -intended use of the pencil, competing costs for the same pencil, and contact information. for the buyer and the seller.
“It is very popular among the business community,” says Zadvornyy, as it ensured fair market practices for the first time in the history of Ukraine.
Still, Western countries have urged Ukraine to do more as billions of dollars of public and private investments have flowed into the country still at war with separatists.
“It is not enough to pass laws to increase transparency regarding official sources of income,” said then-Vice President Joe Biden. before a session of Ukraine’s parliament in 2015, where he pledged a $190 million package to fight graft.
“Reform is not just good governance, it is self-preservation,” he added.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden (center), Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (right) and parliament speaker Volodymyr Groysman at the Ukrainian parliament, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 8 ‘ December 2015.
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Then-Vice President Joe Biden (center), Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (right) and parliament speaker Volodymyr Groysman at the Ukrainian parliament, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 8 ‘ December 2015.
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Still, the kinds of additional reforms Biden and European Union officials wanted to see in Ukraine, such as better enforcement against publicly visible corruption, never materialized.
I respond to a powerful 2016 editorial by The New York Times entitled “Ukraine’s Unyielding Corruption,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accused the newspaper siding with Russia in its war with Ukraine. Poroshenko repeated claims that corruption allegations detracted from national defense during his ultimately unsuccessful presidential race against Zelenskyy in 2019.
The military procurement was secret
When Russia invaded Ukraine again in 2022, Ukraine temporarily suspended transparency requirements due to national security concerns.
In the following months, civilian expenditure returned to the Prozorro database, but military procurement still remained secret. This led some observers, including a group of American legislatorsto demand even more transparency in wartime.
While this is being debated, the issue of perception remains.
“The only way to restore trust is to be as tough as possible,” Shabunin of the Anti-Corruption Action Center says of the government’s recent moves to fire top officials, instead of transparency.
“Yes, we have many problems, but we are on the right path, but we know how it should be,” he says. “That’s why I remain optimistic.”
That seems to be, for now, the EU’s assessment of Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts so far as well.
When the 27-nation bloc accepted Ukraine’s candidacy to join in June 2022, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised the country’s recent reforms.
“Much has been achieved, but, of course, important work remains,” he said von der Leyen.
Joanna Kakissis and Polina Lytvynova contributed to this story.
