A picture of the painting went viral, with people making fun of Pshonka in Caesar’s golden laurel wreath. Reporters then cited their sources in the Prosecutor’s General Office as saying that the portrait was a gift from Pshonka’s colleagues who, obviously, thought of him as a great leader.
Current Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin recently received a similar present – right in time for his first anniversary at the job. It was also a portrait, but in video form: Ukrainian TV channel Inter, owned by moguls Dmytro Firtash and Sergiy Lyovochkin, released a flattering documentary about Shokin.
Lyovochkin is the former chief of staff of disgraced Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovych. He is now a lawmaker with the Opposition Bloc party, a successor to Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. Oligarch billionaire Firtash is in Vienna, where he was arrested in 2014 on a U.S. warrant as a suspect in a bribery case. He denies any wrongdoing.
The 20-minute-long video tribute to the outgoing prosecutor general is called “Shokin,” although “The Great Shokin” would have been a better fit. The film shows – with every trick in the videomaker’s book – how “great” the prosecutor general is.
According to the documentary, Shokin is very modest and hardworking, loves nature and respects women and the elderly. He also says in the movie that he devotes most of his time and effort to fighting corruption.
“And I’m succeeding little by little,” Shokin says.
In his words, the fight against corruption is much more complex than just capturing and imprisoning the bribe-givers. Ukraine can be completely cleansed of graft only in a couple of generations, he says in the film.
“We need to start with our children, in kindergartens, and with ourselves,” he says.
These comments follow the repeated criticism from civil society and Ukraine’s international partners, who keep saying Shokin is dragging his feet in the fight against corruption.
The fawning documentary was released online on Feb. 15 – the same day Shokin’s deputy Vitaly Kasko loudly quit his job, citing corruption and sabotage by Shokin of efforts to combat corruption and institute the rule of law.
While the media and expert community were bursting with irritation, the official Facebook page of the Prosecutor’s General Office decided that posting this movie would smooth the situation.
At the very beginning of the documentary, Shokin brags about one of the important cases he prosecuted. If you are now thinking of the cases involving Yanukovych’s allies and the billions they stole, stop now – the investigation that Shokin showcases as his success took place in the 1990s.
The case of the White Brotherhood, a popular sect in Kyiv, was indeed a big fraud that fooled thousands of people. However, its importance now can hardly be compared to the urgency of punishing those who slaughtered more than 100 EuroMaidan activists – and this is the investigation that has hardly progressed at all under Shokin.
And you know why?
“We can’t rush in such cases,” Shokin says in the movie.
Well, he’s certainly not rushing – the killings took place two years ago.
Fortunately, there is a hope that the movie is also a farewell present for Shokin.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Feb.16 that he had asked his appointed prosecutor to resign, as he, “unfortunately, wasn’t able to win the support of society.”
Soon, a Kyiv Post’s source in Shokin’s office confirmed that the prosecutor general had submitted a resignation note. But other reports say he is on vacation.
Those who were moved by the documentary scenes – where Shokin tells how he had a pet squirrel as a child or how he had to sleep on a windowsill as his family lived in a small room – might feel a bit sorry for him as he leaves office.
But his critics, including me, will be happy to see this impotent prosecutor gone. Let’s just hope we don’t get yet another Caesar wannabe.
