Ukraine’s anti-corruption sabotage – everyone can do better!
Ukraine’s government continues to fight Russia, though at times it seems to be fighting itself. The New York Times reported on the issue that President Zelenskyy’s administration may have made corruption in some of the sectors easier, “…vital wartime industries — power distribution, weapons purchases and nuclear energy — were controlled by state-owned companies that have long served as piggy banks for the country’s elite.” To address these areas of potential corruption, the international donors, who were supporting Ukraine, had required significant oversight. The donors requested that outside experts, known as supervisory boards, were created and their roles were to monitor spending, appoint executives and prevent corruption. This all sounds like a good systemic approach, but unfortunately the Zelenskyy administration stacked boards with loyalists, left seats empty or stalled them from being set up at all and they even rewrote company charters to limit oversight, keeping the government in control and allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent without outsider monitoring. The article shows that the supervisory board in the instance of the present Energoatom corruption scandal could have been prevented. The supervisory board was not working as it should and became stalled, which allowed the behaviors noted, specifically the kickback system which has been a major element of the Energoatom scandal. Additionally, this article has also noted the problems of defense procurement, again with problems touching on the government’s manipulation of the supervisory boards. The donors have mixed reactions, the US notes that the present Ukrainian government is allowing corruption, while the Europeans believe that there is potential significant government interference as well as problems with the supervisory boards.
Why should we care and what should be done? As a supporter of Ukraine and someone who has been working in Ukraine since the 1990s, as well as having worked on anti-corruption in Ukraine, I have very mixed emotions. To start with if we point out the volume of corruption, it is limited when balancing it with the volume of money coming in and that should give us some reassurance. But 100 million USD is a significant amount of money, and this money going into the pockets of government officials should not happen. The donors intention is to protect the money coming from their citizens to the citizens of Ukraine, and to attempt to prevent corruption, supervisory boards was to be a honest attempt at monitoring. The usual arguments are that monitoring slows down the work of the government, yet it seems that the Ukrainian government doesn’t seem to want to create solutions, but would prefer fewer guardrails, which unfortunately has led to some large corruption scandals.
What should we do? To respect the money that comes from all the governments, through their citizens, to the citizens of Ukraine (just want us to remember that all these monies come from the taxes and revenues of European and Americans) there should be greater and more effective monitoring and systems. Thankfully there are quite strong CSOs as well as a strong anti-corruption enforcement group. Obviously, there are large gaps, since it seems that the supervisory board mechanism can be manipulated and a better solution needs to be found. Time is of the essence, but with the support of the donors, more effective systems could be created, though this would require realistic and more expensive monitoring systems. Let’s hope that these cases and this article is a wake up call and a reminder that the world is watching.
Link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/world/europe/ukraine-corruption-zelensky.html