Ukraine races to contain fallout from major corruption scandal
Ukraine is moving quickly to address the damage caused by a major corruption scandal that was revealed this week.
Top officials are rushing to reassure Kyiv’s Western partners, after the alleged $100 million kickbacks scheme in the energy sector — which implicated current and former top officials, and some close associates of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — troubled allies, News.Az reports citing Politico.
“During a full-scale war of aggression, when Russia destroys our energy system day after day and our people endure constant outages, we must fight corruption with the same determination as we fight the external threat,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko told POLITICO on Friday in a written statement.
“In the most difficult times, our strength is unity. Clearing any corruption in any government institution is a matter of dignity for our government. We bear responsibility before our defenders,” Svyrydenko added.
As the scandal mushroomed this week, Kyiv announced high-profile resignations, sanctions against Zelenskyy’s former business partner, a major audit and a reshuffle in the state energy companies, aiming to show Ukraine can effectively clean house.
“There is no room for impunity, whether you’re close or not close ally to someone,” Olga Stefanishyna, Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., told NBC News on Thursday evening. “It’s not a nice thing, but also never in Ukraine’s history have we experienced that, and that means some things we created are really working.”
The corruption scandal rocked Kyiv at an awkward moment, as Ukraine is urging EU partners to take a huge risk and agree on a €140 billion reparation loan taken from seized Russian assets.
It needs financial assistance to survive likely the harshest winter since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. And allies who still want to back Kyiv also want answers on corruption.
“The president was very clear: For him, there is no such thing as an untouchable person involved in corruption or crime. He’s a very principled person. First of all, he himself is not corrupt,” Zelenskyy’s top adviser, Andriy Yermak, said in an interview with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, of which POLITICO is a part.
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