Ukraine's fight against corruption isn't new. It's still trying

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2023-01-27 20:00:11

KYIV, Ukraine — The recent dismissal of senior Ukrainian officials has renewed attention to the country's decades-long battle with corruption.

Over the course of several days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and government Cabinet members ordered the removal of more than a dozen advisers, deputy ministers, prosecutors and regional administrators from their posts.

At least three of the officials were implicated in various scandals revealed by the press. Ukrainian anti-corruption officials arrested one on bribery charges.

"We will never return to how things were before, to the lifestyles that bureaucrats had gotten used to, to the old way of chasing power," Zelenskyy said in a video address late Sunday at the start of the shake-up.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the U.S. is not aware of its assistance being involved in the allegations, but teams in Kyiv and Washington are working to make sure the aid goes to its intended aims.

When Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, control of the country's economy shifted from the former communist leadership in Moscow to what watchdogs called "clans" — private networks of ownership defined by intimidation, cronyism and crime. The free market that President George H.W. Bush encouraged Ukraine to adopt during his 1991 visit to Kyiv ended up a "wild west" of backdoor deals and power grabs as high up as the president's office.