Zelenskyy and the recruiters

why?

President Vlodomir Zelenskyy is rightly cracking down on corruption in Ukraine, specifically targetting the recruiting offices in across the nation. Have I heard about corruption plaguing this country during its fierce contest with Russian invaders? No but I don’t have to.

The scale of cash flowing into Ukraine from 41 different countries to assist in the existential fight is mammoth: $84.4 billion dollars over the past eighteen months. If one went back to Vlad the Impaler’s seizure of Crimea and the beginning of his pressure on Kyiv in 2014, the number increases. For a society emerging from the shrouded behaviour during the corrupt Soviet days between 1918 and 1989, it ought surprise no one that the three decades’ adjusting to rule of law, openness, and mechanisms/institutions of accountability are simply not yet enough time to assure fidelity and good use of such a massive influx of money to the very sectors of society most affected by the war: the military, the families of military personnel, and the segments of Ukraine displaced by conflict.

Nothing about my skepticism that all infusions of help meet their intended targets is unique to Ukraine. Big amounts of additional cash is a perpetual temptation in most, if not all societies globally. In the United States alone, scammers gained $200 billion in false ‘pandemic business loans’ during the COVID mess.

Big money seems to bring out hugely sticky fingers.

Hamid Karzai, by contrast, became phenomenally wealthy during the initial months of the war in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 by personally pocketing monumental amounts of aid. Granted the scale of assistance was different over 19 years but U.S. auditors assess $19 billion lost to abuse, fraud, and generic stealing in that country, roughly 30% of the entire amount of $134 billion over 19 years. Ukraine has now received just under $77 billion over 18 months.

Ukraine, however, already had a history of corruption during the thirty years of recent independence. The 2004 massive public protests, labelled the Orange Revolution, against then-president Viktor Yanukovych’s widely believed voting irregularities ultimately led to his opponent Viktor Yushchenko taking office. By 2014, however, pro-Russian Yanukovych returned to the government, spurring another set of protests know as the 2014 Maidan Revolution. The period saw the initial fracturing of the country along Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking lines, allowing Putin to deploy ‘little green men’ and to seize Crimea, setting up the conditions for his revanchist dream/nightmare last year.

U.S. concerns about corruption are not recent, either. President Trump’s famous ‘perfect call’ with Zelenskyy in 2019 asked for political dirt on probable 2020 opponent Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business interests in the Ukrainian petroleum sector. Witnesses said Trump sought evidence of corruption implicating the Bidens rather then lauding actions by then-Vice President Biden in 2016 against corruption by withholding $1billion in assistance until the corrupt Chief Prosecutor of Ukraine left office.

For Republicans, the selective use of admittedly convoluted details are a lynch pin to their governance strategy, calling repeatedly for investigation, if not incarceration, of the Bidens. Earlier today the Attorney General named a Special Prosecutor in the Hunter Biden saga that has dragged out for the better part of a decade.

Vlodomir Zelenskyy smartly recognises the importance of this anti-corruption move for two vital reasons. One is the unjust nature of Putin’s invasion. Not only was it fanciful but it is brutal and diabolical. He needs remind outsiders of the contrast between the Kremlin’s actions and Ukraine’s.

Additionally, Zelenskyy shrewdly understands he was elected, surprisingly, as an anti-corruption figure. Few people expected a Jewish stand-up comic to win sufficient votes to govern a nation with a long tradition of anti-Semitism, corruption, and entrenched elites dating well back into the Soviet era. Upholding his mantra four and a half years after election and eighteen months after invasion is brilliant at home and internationally.

Few can question that millions are suffering in the war-ravaged country. Seeing their military, government officials or average citizens stealing war time assistance would be a demoralising step he wants to avoid.. Undoubledly some of it has occurred or he would not have purged the recruiters. But he did take steps putting these people on public reprimand while removing (at least apparently) their hands from the till.

Zelenskyy also signaled to supporters abroad, particulalry as the U.S. Congress tires of supporting the war effort as they discuss taking on a somewhat similar hypothetical obligation for Taiwan, he does not want to be in Putin’s category as a corrupt regime. Transparency International, the gold standard organisation evaluating public sector stealing, rated Ukraine 116 of 180 nations globally last year with lower numbers better; Russia was 137 of 180 last year. The Ukrainian desperately wants to prove he is not Putin.

A public campaign against corruption by recruiters is worthy on its own. The Ukrainians are sacrificing so much already. Zelenskyy’s actions, especially when no widespread allegations aginst him or his family compete in the airwaves, are what a responsible governing official does, much less one at war facing an existential danger

Smart move. Let’s hope its message is well-received across the Slavic state.FIN

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Antezza, Arianna; Frank, Andre; Frank, Pascal; Franz, Lukas; Kharitonov, Ivan; Kumar, Bharath; Rebinskaya, Ekaterina; Trebesch, Christoph (16 June 2022). "The Ukraine Support Tracker: Which countries help Ukraine and how?". Kiel Working Papers, retrieved at https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/?cookieLevel=not-set

Camille Caldera, ‘Fact Check: Biden leveraged $1B in aid to Ukraine to oust Prosecutor, not to aid son’, USAToday.com, 21 October 2020, retrieved at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/21/fact-check-joe-biden-leveraged-ukraine-aid-oust-corrupt-prosecutor/5991434002/

Thomas O. Falk, ‘How much of a problem is corruption in Ukraine?’, Al-Jahzeera.com, 15 June 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/15/how-problematic-is-corruption-in-ukraine

Ayaz Gul, ‘U.S. reportedly lost 19 billion to Fraud, Abuse in Afghanistan’, voanews.com, 20 October 2020, retrieved at https://www.voanews.com/a/south-central-asia_us-reportedly-lost-19-billion-fraud-abuse-afghanistan/6197383.html

Martin Kaste, ‘Over $200 billion in pandemic business loans appears to be fraudulent, a watchdog says’, npr.org, 27 June 2023, https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184555444/200-billion-pandemic-business-loans-fraudulent

Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow, ‘How Much Aid Has the U.S.s Sent Ukraine. Here are Six Charts’, ‘ 23 July 2023, retrieved at https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts

‘Corruptions Perception Index, 2022’, Transparency International, retrieved at https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022