Last week, the Ukrainian government appointed Semen Kryvonos as the new National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) director. According to a Reuters article, Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal stated that this appointment would satisfy one of the requirements allowing Ukraine to be accepted into the European Union. They must commit to tackling the widespread corruption that has plagued the country for years to gain entry. Despite Kryvonos’ appointment, questions about his suitability for this role have been asked. According to an article published by euromaidanpress.com, the Anti-Corruption Action Center, an activist group in Ukraine, worries that Kryvonos’s previous experience in Ukraine’s urban planning department isn’t sufficient experience for tackling endemic graft. This is a step in the right direction, but Ukraine will have to do more if it is genuinely serious about combating malfeasance and obtaining entry into the EU.
Category: Conflict
The Wagner Group Sanctioned: Putin’s Corrupt Paramilitary
Recently, a mysterious paramilitary group called the Wagner Group, run by a crony of President Putin, has been in the news. Wagner is run by a man named Yevgeny Prigozhin, who, earlier in his life, was in prison after committing a series of robberies in the early 80s. According to an article in The Guardian, Prigozhin excelled in the free-wheeling culture in St Petersburg in the early 1990s. He quickly moved from selling hot dogs to buying up stakes in supermarkets and a liquor store. Eventually, he started managing a restaurant called the Old Customs House, where he made meaningful political connections.
Not long after, Prigozhin started to get involved in military-related issues due to being awarded catering contracts for the army. Shortly afterwards, according to the article in The Guardian, he asked the Russian Ministry of Defense for a parcel of land to train “volunteers” that would have no links to the regular Russian army. The organization quickly became Putin’s go-to option for any off-the-books military operations and gained a bloody reputation in Syria. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Wagner has taken a more prominent role within the Russian military. On January 20th, Wagner was sanctioned by the U.S. government as a transnational criminal organization. According to an article in the AP, Wagner allegedly spends over $100 million monthly on the war in Ukraine. It is not clear from the article where precisely this money comes from, but it is a safe assumption that it comes from the Russian state. If the West is to aid Ukraine, limiting the ability of people or entities wishing to provide material support to the Wagner group will be essential.
Zelenskyy’s House Cleaning.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has recently fired several high-ranking officials in what is becoming an ever-widening corruption scandal. Reports emerged on Monday, the 23rd of January, that Zelenskyy had fired his deputy infrastructure minister Vasyl Lozinskyi for allegedly stealing $400,000 intended to support the war effort. According to an article in The Guardian, Lozinskyi colluded with contractors to inflate the price of items such as generators, and he would pocket the difference. And according to a Reuters article from the 22nd of January, defense minister Oleksiy Reznikov had secured food on contracts at highly inflated prices. Zelenskyy’s deputy cabinet minister was also fired after allegations emerged that he drove luxury cars around Kyiv shortly after Russia invaded.
A recent Washington Post article highlights the role journalists and NGOs in Ukraine have played in exposing corrupt schemes. Also, according to a recent report by The Guardian, Oleksandr Novikov, the country’s lead anti-corruption tsar, has vowed not to let up on pursuing corrupt individuals despite being in a war. According to polling done in Ukraine before the war, only 40 percent of the Ukrainian population was willing to report corruption. However, 84 percent of the population is now ready to report wrongdoing. Surely if Countries such as the US and the UK are going to continue giving military aid to Ukraine, they will want to see some progress on the anti-corruption front.
Sergei Surovikin: Is he Corrupt or Not?
Recently, President Vladimir Putin named Sergei Surovikin as the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. In many articles announcing his appointment, military sources (mainly the Ministry of Defense (MOD) in the United Kingdom) state that he is corrupt, brutal, and ruthless on the battlefield. According to the New York Times, he served in Chechnya in the early 2000s and commanded Russian forces in Syria, where numerous human rights violations occurred. Also, according to a report in The Guardian, Surovikin led a rifle division that broke barriers set up by pro-democracy protesters during the 1991 attempted coup by Soviet hardliners and killed three people.
It is much harder to pin him down on any concrete allegations of corruption other than the possibility of weapons dealing. Brokering arms is undoubtedly an unsavory business, but without in-depth evidence, it seems a stretch to label Surovikin as corrupt. This raises the issue of media outlets and other organizations stating that a person may be involved in corruption, but fail to back up such allegations with credible evidence. It seems clear that Surovikin is likely a war criminal, but is he corrupt? It is much more difficult to tell without hard facts.
Zelenskyy’s House Cleaning.
Recently. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fired several high-ranking officials in what is becoming an ever-widening corruption scandal. Reports emerged on Monday, the 23rd of January, that Zelenskyy had fired his deputy infrastructure minister Vasyl Lozinskyi for allegedly stealing $400,000 that was intended to support the war effort. According to an article in The Guardian, Lozinskyi colluded with contractors to inflate the prices of items such as generators, and he would pocket the difference. According to a Reuters article from the 22nd of January, the defense minister Oleksiy Reznikov had secured food on contracts at highly inflated prices. Zelenskyy’s deputy cabinet minister was also fired after allegations emerged that he drove luxury cars around Kyiv shortly after Russia invaded.
A Washington Post article published recently highlights the role journalists and NGOs in Ukraine have played in exposing corrupt schemes. Also, according to a recent report by The Guardian, Oleksandr Novikov, the country’s lead anti-corruption tsar, has vowed not to let up on pursuing corrupt individuals despite being in the middle of a war. According to polling done in Ukraine before the war, only 40 percent of the Ukrainian population was willing to report corruption. However, 84 percent of the population is now ready to report wrongdoing. Surely if Countries such as the US and the UK are going to continue giving military aid to Ukraine, they will want to see some progress on the anti-corruption front.
The Imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi: Politically Motivated or Genuine?
Recently Aung San Suu Kyi was convicted of corruption charges and now faces up to 33 years in prison. She is also facing charges related to breaching COVID-19 laws, sedition, and election fraud. Suu Kyi is viewed as a defender of democratic and human rights in Burma, where the military holds immense power over civil society. According to an article by NPR, the specific corruption charges relate to the alleged misuse of state funds and allowing a cabinet minister to purchase a helicopter. Western experts generally assume that Suu Kyi’s trial is essentially for show, not unlike the trials that took place during the Stalin era in the Soviet Union. Despite Ms. Suu Kyi’s questionable actions regarding the minority Rohingya ethnic group, it seems unlikely that she is guilty of wrongdoing.
Suu Kyi’s trial and corruption charges appear to be a classic example of an authoritarian government attempting to remove a politician with democratic ideals through spurious allegations. Befitting a country where a military junta is in power, there is not much information on how deep corruption runs in Myanmar. However, there is a report authored by the Anti-Corruption Resource Centre detailing the different types of misconduct that affect civil society in Myanmar. For example, cronyism appears to be prevalent within the military, with high-ranking ministers selling state-run assets to close friends and associates with little transparency being observed. Myanmar also suffers from a “resource curse,” meaning that while it is blessed with many natural resources, corruption surrounding oil & gas exploration and logging is rampant. It seems very clear that the military junta sees Suu Kyi as a threat to their abuses and of their grip on power, so putting her in prison on politically motivated charges appears, from their perspective, to be the only option.
Crispin Corruption Report 