Editor’s Note: Decades of public mismanagement, extractive institutions, rent-seeking oligarchs and a culture of bribery have left Ukraine with one of the world’s worst records on corruption. As President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration passed ambitious anti-corruption legislation this week, including a judicial reform bill that will fully replace members of the agency that vets and hires judges, and a law that provides legal protections and monetary rewards to whistle blowers, we decided to ask Ukrainians how they would tackle corruption if they had the chance.
Oleksander Suhoparov
bookseller
“Ideally, jail the oligarchs and redistribute their wealth. Distribute at least 1 million hryvnia to the people. If a person gets 1 million so that he can progress further but uses the million on vodka and partying, then he is not worthy of this money. So there must be some additional control of some sort.”
Yurii Vidyanin
retiree
“If we look at it today, then we need to jail people. For delinquency. We need to jail the big guys, starting with (ex-President Petro) Poroshenko. Everyone knows this. Then people will understand.”
Alina Golovka
student at the University of Philology
“We must expose those who are taking bribes – give information about the corrupt officials. When regular people themselves do it, like with doctors, we give them various bribes, we think it’s the only way. We need to change our attitudes.”
Natalia Yemelianovna
museum worker
“Independence is more important. Corruption would be my second priority, but defending our independence comes first. It’s hard because our corruption has existed for decades, and we will have to fight it in the next decade.”
Matviy Muraviev
IT worker
“You would need a utopia. The lower class will always have smaller forms of corruption that will be hard to get rid of. And then on the higher level, everything should be transparent so the people can control and watch over all the processes that take place so that there is some sort of system of punishment.”
Katya Borkovska
bank employee
“You could raise their wages. Simplify the corrupt bureaucratic systems so that a person wouldn’t be interested in bribes and would take the legal path to get what he wants.”
Evgenii Savenko
entrepreneur
“If I was president, I wouldn’t agree with trying to curb it, honestly, it’s hard. How does one curb corruption?There is no death penalty in Ukraine. I’d support the death penalty. I’m for tough justice.”
Victoria Koroleva
tourism manager
“Our people are not taught to work normally and ethically, that is my personal opinion. So there should be foreign experts and little by little make changes.”
