Ukrainian politics never lacks paradoxes. But there is one that is especially glaring: Arsen Avakov remaining interior minister for six years for no objective reason.
Failed police reform, stalled or obstructed investigations, police abuse and violence — none of this appears to be important enough for President Volodymyr Zelensky to say goodbye to the notorious interior minister.
While other ministers and top officials get the boot for failing to show enough results within a matter of months, Avakov remains firmly enthroned after failing to clean and professionalize the police force in six years.
A police crime that occurred earlier this week symbolized Avakov’s poor management. A woman from Kaharlyk, a town 80 kilometers south of Kyiv, reported that two police officers raped and tortured her for hours inside the local police station. They also reportedly tortured a local man who was at the station at the same time. The officers were arrested. The Interior Ministry reported that it had suspended the entire staff of the police station in Kaharlyk, but journalists soon discovered that wasn’t true.
It is, however, only the latest reason why police officers in the giant 200,000-employee Interior Ministry have every reason to expect impunity.In May 2019, a five-year-old boy was shot dead by two police officers firing guns for fun in a residential neighborhood in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky, a city in Kyiv Oblast. A year later, no one has been charged with the crime.
“He’s a very strong minister,” Zelensky said of Avakov at a press conference on May 20, when asked why he’s keeping him in office.
Avakov’s strength has little to do with serving the people of Ukraine. He is a cyncial yet clever powerbroker — a force to be reckoned with. He managed to bury a criminal case of embezzlement against his son and a top aide. He leads a ministry too incompetent, corrupt or indifferent to solve the nation’s most serious crimes.
He epitomizes Ukraine’s broken criminal justice system. Ukraine will not progress in rule of law with him at the helm. And this unhappy situation will cost Ukraine potentially billions of dollars yearly in foreign direct investment as the smart money decides that there are safer havens around the world.
Zelensky thinks he can’t afford to let Avakov go. In reality, he can’t afford to keep him.
