Billionaire oligarch Victor Pinchuk’s Yalta European Strategy conference was once again packed with high-profile guests and paid speakers. Their assessment, however, was correct: Ukraine still has no rule of law and, consequently, the economy will suffer. Ukrainian-American Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine’s former finance minister, said: “It’s about the same anti-monopoly rules, antitrust rules, about the same access to courts. Rule of law, corruption is rampant here.”
The same assessment came from one of Ukraine’s best friends, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid. “Unfortunately, in five years, I didn’t see Ukraine’s move towards the fulfillment of the Copenhagen criteria,” said Kaljulaid.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has only himself to blame. There are signs that corruption is flourishing behind closed doors. Perhaps the most public example is the $4.5 billion “Big Construction” road program, spent with no transparent bidding, an invitation for kickbacks. Let us not forget that the powers of the KGB successor agency — the Security Service of Ukraine — have not been reduced — meaning its agents can presumably continue to shake down corporations for profit.
Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova is unwilling or unable to bring charges in any big cases and obstructing others. This invites suspicion of continuing corruption. In her 18 months in office, zero big fish were charged despite an abundance of evidence.
But Ukraine has moved in the wrong direction in other areas as well.
Some of the country’s most important goals — picking a new chief of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, reforming the judicial governing body, liquidating the country’s dirtiest court and repairing the Constitutional Court — have been sabotaged by lawmakers, the President’s Office, members of the judiciary or all at once.
Meanwhile, Zelensky’s discredited deputy chief of staff Oleh Tatarov threw a birthday party attended by a dozen law enforcement officials, confirming speculation that Tatarov controls law enforcement agencies. A top prosecutor who helped destroy the graft case against Tatarov was among the attendees.
Ukraine’s deoligarchization went hand-in-hand with the oligarch-sponsored YES conference. The head of Zelensky’s ruling Servant of the People faction in parliament, David Arakhamia, was spotted chatting with billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky — suspected of looting $5.5 billion from PrivatBank and other crimes (for which he’s not charged despite the evidence.)
Either Zelensky doesn’t get it or he’s in on the act.
“Laws are passed, and laws have been passed for 30 years, yet it’s the execution and implementation of those laws that entrepreneurs fear are not the case,” said Jaresko during the YES Conference.
Ukrainians give presidents time before public opinion turns decisively against them — Leonid Kuchma in 2002, Viktor Yushchenko in 2008, Viktor Yanukovych in 2013 and Petro Poroshenko in 2017. Is 2021 the year that Ukrainians decide they’ve had enough of Zelensky?
