The cooperation between Ukraine and Western institutions has several vital conditions. Some of them always have been problematic for any Ukrainian government. It is the question of independent law enforcement, independent state companies, and independent anti-corruption institutes.
The political independence of law enforcement in Ukraine has always been doubtful. The autonomy of state companies was recently compromised when Head of National Bank Yakiv Smoliy was forced to resign because he was openly opposed to the weakening of hryvnia — which was a part of the plan of the presidential office. And in the past few weeks, the Ukrainian government once again gave its critics a reason to say that it is trying to make the anti-corruption institutes its own political lapdog.
On Sept. 16, the Constitutional Court has declared illegal some parts of the law about the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, or NABU. The officials of the bureau voiced their fears that it’s just the prelude to the new law, which will make the bureau politically dependant.
On the next day, the Ukrainian parliament appointed seven people to choose the new head of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, or SAPO. Oleksandra Ustinova, an MP of the opposition party Voice (Holos) and formerly an anti-graft activist, said that the selected people themselves could be the target of SAPO investigations because they are known as protectors of corruption and couldn’t explain their wealth origins. The concerns about the fate of SAPO are shared by many international institutes, including the European Union and the U.S. Embassy.
The anti-corruption reform in Ukraine was one of the conditions of its visa-free agreement with the European Union. Any shifts here can jeopardize this achievement. It could be a huge blow to the current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: The visa-free agreement with EU was one of the biggest achievements of his predecessor and rival, Petro Poroshenko.
Also, both independence of the National Bank and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office are crucial for the Ukrainian further cooperation with the International Monetary Fund — which now is essential, considering the huge deficit of the state budget and the blow the economy took from the pandemic.
Delegations of G7 and EU discussed these topics at their last meeting with Zelensky on Sept. 23. The president assured them that he fully supports the independence of anti-corruption authorities.
But does he?
According to Geo Leros, a lawmaker and former member of the faction of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, the architect of the changes at SAPO is the head of Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak. Leros, once an adviser of Zelensky, became a pariah within the party and the administration when he published records that show the younger brother of the chief of staff, Denys Yermak, discuss possible appointments on the number of positions of power in Ukraine in exchange for money. After that, SAPO opened an investigation into the records — but the president Zelensky supported his chief of staff, saying he trusts him. Yermak denies that he or his brother were involved in selling state jobs.
Yermak is the de facto right hand of the president and was present at the meeting with EU and G7 ambassadors. So it’s practically the Presidential Office promising to stop the Presidential Office from influencing Ukrainian fragile anti-corruption institutions.
There are reasons to believe that the Presidential Office will not stop controlling the anti-corruption institutions but instead will try to change its perception abroad. In September, a Ukrainian news site The Page reported that, according to US Ministry of Justice records, a little-known organization paid $58.000 to American lobbying firm Tricuro LLC to organize a visit of the Ukrainian delegation of the National Bank and Prosecutor General’s Office officials, including their top management. After the planned trip was revealed and questions were raised about its organizers and sponsors, the visit was canceled from the Ukrainian side.
The situation could be more serious than it seems to Ukrainian authorities. For them, controlling the anti-corruption institutions and state enterprises is the final step to the ultimate power — everything else is already under their control or control of their allies.
But the price to achieve it can prove to be too high.
The G7, EU, and IMF are not like Zelensky’s party’s voters. They are not some simple folks who could be charmed by effective PR. They view the independence of the anti-corruption system and state companies as the necessary condition of cooperation. And without that cooperation, not only the political future of Zelensky but the geopolitical future of Ukraine itself can be at great risk.
Victor Tregubov is a Ukrainian columnist, political blogger and the former editor-in-chief of Petr and Mazepa online news outlet. He is also a co-founder of the Democratic Axe (Demokratychna Sokyra) political party.
