Newest reports and rumors of wrongdoing by elite are a reminder that impunity among Ukraine’s political elite has created a lawless culture of tabloid spin and diversions.

President Victor Yushchenko’s elder son Andriy was at the center of a scandal last week. He was accused of firing a gun outside a restaurant in Kyiv after a squabble late on June 27. All police accounts of the incident categorically debunk this version. It turns out that the president’s son wasn’t even at the place. The president’s side accused Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s camp of dirty fighting to divert attention from a real scandal within their own party ranks.

Victor Lozynsky, a lawmaker with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT), is a suspect in the investigation into the murder of a 55-year-old man in Kirovohrad Oblast. A criminal case was started against Lozynsky after the June 16 discovery of Valery Oliynyk’s body.

BYuT and Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine traded accusations of running a slanderous election campaign. But the social and political implications of these two cases are wider. The number of unsolved crimes in which high-ranking officials have been implicated is notoriously high. Such cases are typically buried. Ukraine’s prosecutors, headed by individuals reportedly close to the Party of Regions, started a criminal case more than two weeks after the murder. There is little optimism that the guilty will be punished.

Impunity among the political elite has created a culture in which tabloid-scale diversions, such as the one maligning Andriy Yushchenko, are routine. People have little or no trust in government institutions, including law enforcement. This circumstance makes such groundless accusations even more cynical.