U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Ukraine Christina Quinn announced on Dec. 9 that Washington will be applying new sanctions against a number of corrupt people, among whom, she hinted, are Ukrainian citizens.
She was speaking at the Seven Years of Anti-Corruption Reform conference in Kyiv.
Quinn said that at 17.00 today, during the forum of democratic countries organized by the Biden Administration, Washington will make an important statement.
During the conference, the U.S. official urged Ukraine to complete the competition for the election of a new head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) by the end of 2021.
The Ambassador of the European Union to Ukraine Matti Maasikas also stressed that “It will be crucial that the process for the selection of a new head of SAPO will be concluded without any further delay.”
Quinn and Maasikas reaffirmed that both the U.S. and the EU support Ukraine’s efforts to create an anti-corruption infrastructure and expressed the importance of adopting an effective ant-corruption strategy without delay.
“Unfortunately, Ukraine remains without a strategic policy document and action plan for the implementation of its anticorruption reforms,” the ambassador noted. What is needed is a “realistic roadmap for tackling priority problems,” Interfax-Ukraine reports.
“Zero tolerance“
for corruption is crucial for improving the investment climate, he elaborated, and that it is also “very important to focus on sectoral reforms in order to reduce corruption in the energy and defense sectors.”
The EU ambassador acknowledged the progress that has been made.
"As far as the judiciary is concerned. We witnessed important steps have been taken this year. With the establishment and operation of the Ethics Council of the High Council of Justice was created and High Qualification Commission of Judges. These bodies are expected to reform other bodies that are in the center of the judicial system in Ukraine. It is important that this reform is concluded swiftly," together with the reform of the Constitutional Court.
In addition, the EU’s representative noted the importance of a transparent, politically distanced process for electing heads of anti-corruption agencies.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova has been in Washington this week, the first visit by the head of her office to the U.S. Department of Justice since 2002, to discuss bilateral cooperation on extradition.
"Cooperation in extradition between our countries is developing quite dynamically - in the last year we have extradited to the United States as many people as in the previous four years combined. And I am convinced that we will continue to act in a coordinated and effective manner as part of criminal proceedings," Venediktova said.
"We already have a history of joint victories to stop the activity of hacking groups and international fraudulent schemes. The issue concerns large-scale law enforcement operations that have a global impact, such as this year's international operation to expose a hacker group that distributed malicious software Emotet," the prosecutor general explained, according to her press service.
STORY UPDATED: The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on Dec. 9 a new list of “specially designated nationals” against whom sanctions are to be applied under the Global Magnitsky Act for alleged corruption. They include the Ukrainian Andriy Portnov, the former first deputy head of President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration, and his “Charitable Organization Andriy Portnov Fund.”
Andriy Portnov
home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions/20211209
