Ukraine makes gains in its other war – fighting corruption

BBC:

Ukraine has battled endemic corruption since the first days of its independence in 1991, and government officials and independent campaigners alike say that fight is key to winning the existential war it is fighting with Russia.

They have had some success. Anti-corruption organisation Transparency International ranks Ukraine at its highest level since 2006: currently 104th out of 180 countries in its Corruption Perceptions Index.

“Most Ukrainian anti-corruption institutions are showing pretty good results,” Andriy Borovyk, the executive director of Transparency International Ukraine, tells the BBC.

According to him, one such result is the arrest of the then-Supreme Court head, Vsevolod Knyazev, on bribery charges in May 2023.

“This can be a safeguard because if you see somebody arrested, you will think twice before doing something corrupt,” he said.

There have been other high-profile arrests too, including agriculture minister Mykola Solsky and an officer with the SBU intelligence service, Artem Shylo.

All three deny any wrongdoing and have been released on bail. Investigations are ongoing.

“There aren’t any people or positions left in Ukraine that anti-corruption agencies cannot touch,” he tells the BBC. “This is probably our main achievement because we couldn’t even dream of it a few years ago.”

Dmytro Kalmykov, the head of the anti-corruption policy department at the National Agency for Preventing Corruption, a government agency, says graft has been all but exterminated in some of the worst affected areas – for instance, government services such as issuing passports, permits and licences.

He also tells the BBC that significant progress had been made in reforming education and police.