Dmytro Kozianynskyi was still acclimating to his reentry into civilian life after three years of military service when he read in July about a proposed law that would gut Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption institutions.
“I thought, ‘This is not what I fought in this existential war for,’” says the veteran, who now works at a Kyiv nonprofit providing rehabilitation for wounded soldiers. “I thought this law would be against our integration into Europe and the future I see for Ukraine.”
So Mr. Kozianynskyi turned to his blog, where he asked his 12,000 social media followers to consider joining him the next day in central Kyiv in a peaceful protest against the proposed legislation.
Why We Wrote This
Many Ukrainians lament that the scandal in the president’s inner circle is a reminder that a corrupt culture still lurks in the halls of power. Yet many are encouraged that the anti-corruption apparatus was strong enough to pursue the powerful.
The response astounded even Mr. Kozianynskyi.
In what was Ukraine’s first major protest since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, thousands of Ukrainians, mostly young people, filled a square not far from Maidan, the historic public space that was ground zero for Ukraine’s 2013 pro-democracy revolution.
By Day 2, the crowd swelled to more than 10,000 people.
“I thought I would be happy if a few people from my social bubble joined me,” he says. “But it was amazing to see that thousands of people felt strongly enough about this issue to answer the call.
“It really showed me, and I think the world,” he adds, “how important this battle against corruption is to Ukrainian people.”
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A shaken government scuttled the proposed law, leaving the country’s two primary anti-corruption institutions intact and, crucially, independent.
Blow to Zelenskyy
The significance of the victory in the summer’s “battle against corruption,” as Mr. Kozianynskyi calls it, was underscored in November when a giant energy sector kickback scandal detonated in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s inner circle of aides and close advisers.
According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, one of the independent agencies the defeated legislation would have weakened, senior officials – including Mr. Zelenskyy’s powerful confidant and business partner Tymur Mindich – skimmed some $100 million from contracts to fortify the battered energy sector.
By the end of November, the investigation also took down Mr. Zelenskyy’s closest adviser, Andriy Yermak.
The erupting scandal was a blow to Mr. Zelenskyy just as he was pressing Ukraine’s case in talks with international partners over U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan to end Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Mr. Yermak had been leading Ukraine’s delegation in talks with the Trump administration.
European leaders in particular cautioned Mr. Zelenskyy that they would have an increasingly difficult time convincing their constituents to support substantial aid packages for a country seen to be rife with corruption.
“They do have a massive corruption situation going on there [in Ukraine],” Mr. Trump told reporters this month.
For Ukrainians themselves, the corruption scandal is something of a double-edged sword.
Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters
Yes, many lament, this scandal now dubbed “Mindichgate” is a sobering reminder that a culture of corruption that took hold under the Soviet Union still lurks in the halls of power. More disheartening still is how this case involves the energy sector and money intended in part for repairs to keep the lights and heat on just as Ukrainians face a harsh winter of intensified Russian attacks on the sector.
The system worked
But on the other hand, many Ukrainians find solace in the fact that the country’s anti-corruption apparatus not only functioned and withstood efforts to dismantle it, but has proved strong enough to pursue even some of the country’s most powerful.
“There’s no question that this is a bad scandal. It’s discouraging and damaging for all of us in Ukraine,” says Iryna Podolyak, a former member of Parliament who is now director of development and investigative projects at independent anti-corruption center NGL.media in Lviv.
“But the positive side of something very bad is that we have seen because of it that the country’s anti-corruption infrastructure works pretty well. And that functioning of public institutions has encouraged people to see this as our fight,” she adds. “It’s a fight for what Ukraine will look like after the war.”
This split-screen perspective that finds “Mindichgate” to be simultaneously disheartening and encouraging is widespread in Ukraine.
“Many people have taken the news of this scandal and then the way it has developed and concluded that we are facing a paradox,” says Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta Center for Political Studies in Kyiv. “They see that a deeply rooted system of corruption is still with us,” he says. “But at the same time they see the anti-corruption infrastructure of Ukraine’s democracy working and able to reach the very top of the country’s power structure.”
What kind of long-term blow the scandal will deal to Ukraine’s international reputation remains to be seen. But overall perceptions of corruption in Ukraine have been slowly ameliorating over the decade since the democratic revolution.
Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor
Transparency International’s respected Corruption Perceptions Index, which gauges perceived levels of public sector corruption, shows Ukraine’s score improving over the past 10 years – although it did dip slightly in 2023.
Main problem is still the war
Many analysts say there is a strong desire for more than gradual progress, however – something closer to an anti-corruption revolution – but that the war is tempering public demands for internal progress when the top priority is confronting an external enemy.
“People realize that the country needs to find a balance,” Mr. Fesenko says. “There’s an understanding that we can’t be fighting an internal political war at the same time as we are in a full war with Russia.”
Ms. Podolyak puts it this way: “Most people realize that right now Ukraine’s main problem is not corruption, it’s the war with an enemy who wants to erase our existence,” she says. “If we don’t survive as a state, it doesn’t matter if we are corrupt or not.”
As for Mr. Kozianynskyi, the soldier who may have saved Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions with his summer protests, events have convinced him that the country is able to fight corruption and an “existential” war at the same time.
“I think we’ve learned that our society is mature enough to support and demand a strong anti-corruption effort even as we fight a war,” Mr. Kozianynskyi says.
“I know some people say that exposing the dirty actions of some officials in high places only feeds the Russian disinformation claims that Ukraine is a corrupt country,” he adds. “But for me, the way our institutions have worked to expose the corruption is the best answer to Putin.”
Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting for this story.
