This week's sting operation, during which two high-ranking prosecutors were arrested on suspicion of bribery with some $500,000 in valuables being found at their homes and offices, was a flamboyant display of law enforcement. It was meant to publicly show that authorities mean business in eradicating the scourge of corruption.
Yet it was nothing more than a cheap spectacle, anti-corruption activists, political scientists and current and former lawmakers told the Kyiv Post.
Scenes of the dramatic bust were broadcast on TV screens across the nation. Masked men were shown breaking into a safe to reveal diamonds and jewels, stacks of cash and a Kalashnikov rifle. Then the “bad guys” were marched out to face justice.
Anyone familiar with recent Ukrainian history has seen such images before. Experts and lawmakers alike are convinced that these arrests are just the latest fabrication in a Potemkin village of empty crackdowns.
A similar spectacle was aired live on television as recently as March when Serhiy Bochkovsky, head of Ukraine’s State Service for Emergency Situations, was detained in the middle of a Cabinet meeting on suspicion of corruption.
Many applauded the move.
But days later Bochkovsky was released and Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court refused to issue an arrest warrant.
Daryna Kalenyuk, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, said Bochkovsky’s case undermined her faith in law enforcement.
“I personally doubt that the suspects will remain in custody for very long,” she said, adding that the raid “smelled like a show” and lamented the fact that many cases against officials fall apart when they go to court.
Caught red-handed in 2013 taking a $15,000 payoff in return for enrolling two students, the former rector of the Tax Academy in Irpin, Petro Melnyk, was acquitted by that city’s court on July 8 in yet another case smelling of corruption.
On July 9, Volodymyr Shapakin, deputy chief of the investigative branch of the general prosecutor’s office, was released on bail, while Oleksandr Korniyets, deputy prosecutor of Kyiv Oblast remained in custody.
Deputy prosecutor of Kyiv Oblast Oleksandr Korniyets
Despite their arrests, lawmakers and analysts say the problem runs much deeper, and the current system is rotten to the core, shaped by vested interests who don’t want to lose their power — which gives them the ability to charge bribes.
That became clear when the operation to detain the two officials, who are accused of running a massive extortion scheme, was nearly foiled by the acting prosecutor general himself, Volodymyr Huzyr, prompting intervention from President Petro Poroshenko.
Huzyr appeared during the raid and, according to lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko, tried to stop it. The reformist prosecutor who initiated the raid, Davit Sakvarelidze, himself now faces criminal charges for “seizing state property” during the operation, according to lawmaker Mustafa Nayyem.
Kalenyuk said the subsequent events after the search were a cause for concern.
“The fact that a criminal case was opened (against Sakvarelidze)…that is, of course, very strange. But then again, we don’t have all the information about the case. Was the raid sanctioned by a court? We don’t know,” she said.
Bail for the two arrested suspects was set at Hr 3.2 million each, far too low for the alleged crime, according to Sakvarelidze’s Facebook post on July 8.
Poroshenko then on July 8 called on parliament to draft legislation prohibiting officials suspected of corruption from being released on bail.
At a meeting with regional officials in Odesa Oblast, he urged lawmakers to “deprive corrupt officials who’ve been caught red-handed, with all the evidence, of the opportunity to be released on bail.”
The recent sting operation has already triggered calls for Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to be replaced. Shokin, who has worked at the prosecutor’s office for his entire career, appointed Shapakin.
Andriy Demartin, a spokesman for the General Prosecutor’s Office, declined to comment on the matter by phone. A written request for comment was not immediately answered.
Independent lawmaker Borislav Bereza told the Kyiv Post it would be impossible to get rid of corruption without a complete overhaul.
“What do you think happens if you put a fresh cucumber in a jar of pickles? That’s right, it becomes salty, and it’s the same with people – having wound up in a community of corrupt people, you will inevitably become corrupt yourself,” Bereza said. “If they (the arrested prosecutors) don’t go to jail for this, all hope is lost.”
Oleksandr Dony, a former lawmaker, said the current method in fighting corruption seemed to target only the little guys rather than the endemic corruption that runs top to bottom.
“Even the high-ranking people we saw go down in the Kyiv court crackdown and in the prosecutor crackdown are small fry for the system of corruption,” he said.
At the policy level, the fight against corruption has taken priority even as Russia’s war continues in eastern Ukraine and with sporadic terrorist attacks in other locations. Western governments have made it clear that hefty financial aid is contingent on the new authorities stamping out corruption.
As for the showy spectacles of crackdowns, they aren’t fooling anyone, the Razumkov Center found in a poll published last month. Eighty-one percent of those surveyed said they did not believe the clampdown on corruption has been successful.
A cosmetic approach to reforms is also evident in Kyiv’s new police force, trained by U.S. and Canadian cops, and meant to be a visible sign of change.
The force’s 2,000 new recruits look decidedly Western, with less militaristic uniforms, shiny new cars, and – most importantly – higher pay. The measure is aimed at preventing graft among the ranks, and the launch of the new force also means the death of the old one – the traffic police, notorious for shaking down ordinary people.
Armed security service officers guard cash found during a search of the main investigative branch of the General Prosecutor’s Office on July 5.
On July 7, First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Eka Zguladze told journalists that the traffic police would cease to exist in Kyiv by the end of the week, and that their functions would be handed over to the new police patrol.
Zguladze has also spoken out in favor of changing the police lights to red rather than blue – yet another superficial touch that many hope will be accompanied by real change.
Oleksiy Haran, a professor in political science at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, said the system remains resistant to reform, despite the efforts of the authorities to overhaul it.
While corruption undeniably remains, he said, positive changes are being made as well, although he advised against expecting drastic changes overnight.
“The changes are bound to be evolutionary, not radical,” Haran said.
“Take the situation with the oligarchs. They have enormous resources. The state can’t take them on in open confrontation. Even the United States couldn’t put (Dmytro) Firtash behind bars,” Haran said, referring to a recent ruling by a court in Vienna turning down a request by the U.S. for the tycoon to be extradited from Austria.
Kalenyuk of the Anti-Corruption Center was less forgiving.
“Until they start putting officials who steal millions behind bars, we can’t say that this fight is effective,” she said.
Staff writer Allison Quinn can be reached at [email protected]
Staff writer Johannes Wamberg Andersen can be reached at [email protected]
