President Viktor Yanukovych, while on vacation in Crimea, this week ordered a review of all possibly illegal land transactions on the peninsula.
“I am giving an order to conduct an official investigation, and start criminal investigations where necessary, into the violation of laws by authorities, private individuals and companies in Crimea,” the president’s press service reported him as saying on Aug. 3.
There is no doubt that dubious or criminal land deals need to be fully investigated, and those guilty of misappropriation of state property need to be punished. But we suggest that the president should start with Mezhyhirya, a 140-hectare estate outside of Kyiv. It is the very estate the president calls home.
This former forest preserve is guarded so heavily that none of the multiple buildings located on this land has ever been photographed up close. Nevertheless, it has been the subject of multiple journalistic investigations, leading to the conclusion that the chain of companies involved in many land transactions there are closely associated with Yanukovych.
The president himself has confirmed that he bought the house that stands on this land, but did not reveal the price he paid. He has said a part of the land is being developed by “other” investors.
Ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymsohenko frequently mentioned Mezhyhirya during her failed presidential bid. The prosecutor general dutifully pronounced all deals surrounding the land and properties to be clean.
That gave all officials the permission they needed to refuse all further comment.
Journalists, however, continue finding trails of evidence that the deal is not as straightforward as it should have been if the president really wants to show that his anti-corruption talk is more than just hot air.
As the saying goes, the fish rots from the head. This administration has shown no appetite to solve Ukraine’s greatest crimes.
Top officials also give every reason to suspect that they only want to simulate a fight against crime and corruption for public show.
Not much more could be expected from a president whose supporters conspired to rig the presidential election in 2004, and whose associates have been implicated in some of the most serious instances of corruption in the nation’s independent history.
Unless the president gives up Mezhyhirya, he can order as many criminal investigations and create as many anti-corruption groups as he wants.
The nation won’t find him credible until he leads by example.
