It is becoming like an unreal tragic comedy with a vicious twist. In response to a question Zelensky even offered to sacrifice himself in exchange for NATO membership! [1]
Surely, there are intelligent people in Kiev who fully understand that they cannot win the war and that Ukraine is not going to join NATO? At one point, perhaps, there was some rational hope that Russia’s economy would collapse and the Russian army could be defeated by Western weapons. That time is long gone. The writing is on the wall. Why do some want to continue?
I did ask myself; what is corruption like in Kiev? Maybe Zelensky really is running a scam over the dead bodies of his soldiers as per Elon Musk’s comments? [2] I did some Googling. Surprisingly I got few results. Corruption, it seems, is not a media story about Ukraine. (Or, if it is, it is being suppressed by Google). Is that because there is no problem with corruption, or because there is but the Western media is maintaining radio silence on it? I did find one article from the Guardian from 2015 about corruption in the health sector. The headline is: “Welcome to Ukraine, the most corrupt nation in Europe”. This contained some points like:
Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index – the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide – rates Ukraine 142nd in the world, alongside Uganda. In the latest ranking, it fell behind Nigeria.
Sidorenko [a doctor] had another reason to be frustrated. He had 23 years of experience, but earned only €300 a month, barely enough to feed his four young children, let alone to pay the numerous small bribes – to teachers, traffic police, plumbers, tax officers – that are part of everyday life in Ukraine.
During his five years in power, however, Yushchenko [from 2005] failed to dislodge the networks of patronage. Amid widespread disillusionment, he lost the 2010 election to Yanukovych, who was in turn driven out in February 2014, after corruption mutated into still more virulent forms.
Officials from the general prosecutor’s office, who were interviewed by Reuters, claimed that between 2010 and 2014, officials were stealing a fifth of the country’s national output every year. This behaviour has infected all sectors of Ukrainian society. President Yanukovych lived in a vast palace on the edge of Kiev. After he fled, protesters found millions of dollars worth of paintings, icons, books and ceramics stacked in his garage. He’d had nowhere to display them.
The story continues. After Maidan the US appointed Yatsenyuk appointed Oleg Musy as a Health Minister. Oleg Musy was intent on cleaning up corruption in the Health Sector. But Musy was suspended and..
After Musy was suspended from his position, the old networks had re-established themselves, he said, as if nothing had happened. Musy claimed that some of the officials who ran procurement under Yanukovych were back, because the new government had failed to find anyone else with the expertise to navigate the ocean of paperwork required to buy medicine.
I [the reporter] ate my soup and we discussed how businessmen who had got rich under Yanukovych, had quietly returned to Kiev in recent months [post Maidan]. “We took away Yanukovych and his guys but it’s another matter replacing all their schemes,” he [a senior official in various ministries] said. “Everyone is ready to carry out reforms, to make everything open, except for things that affect themselves.”
To be accurate the story concludes with the appointment of a new Health Minister also determined to eliminate corruption.
I don’t know. Has the Zelensky regime eliminated corruption? There are an awful lot of aid dollars swilling around in state bank accounts and huge flows of money.
Notes