President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly declared that, if any of his allies are caught red handed engaging in bribery, he won’t cover up for them and they will be prosecuted.
But when Zelensky had to make good on that promise, it didn’t come easily for him.
On Sept. 15, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) announced a major bribery case against Oleksandr Yurchenko, a lawmaker from Zelensky’s ruling Servant of the People party with 248 seats out of 422 in parliament.
That also case suggests corruption has permeated an entire Verkhovna Rada committee, from top to bottom.
The bureau published videos of Yurchenko brazenly discussing the bribes he and his colleagues take for drafting and vetting bills. Recently, one such bill brought them $80,000 each, he said in the video.
Still, it took public pressure to bring charges against the lawmaker. Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, a Zelensky appointee and loyalist, initially blocked the case against him, claiming there wasn’t enough evidence to press charges. Soon, she gave in to public pressure and authorized the charges on Sept. 17. At the same time, Zelensky put out a statement condemning Yurchenko.
The Yurchenko case comes at a moment of increasing pushback against Ukraine’s faltering anti-corruption efforts. To obstruct cases against the incumbent authorities, the political establishment appears to have mounted a concerted effort to destroy the independence of the NABU and the special anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, or SAPO.
On Sept. 16, the Constitutional Court ruled that some clauses of the law on NABU were unconstitutional. Although the decision ostensibly seeks to restrict the president’s powers in appointing NABU’s head, experts say it may have the opposite effect.
There are fears that Zelensky’s majority in the Verkhovna Rada will change the law in order to fire NABU Chief Artem Sytnyk and appoint a Zelensky loyalist who will block cases against top incumbent officials.
“Most likely, (the Rada) will try to restrict the independence of the bureau and its leadership through legislative changes, which is unacceptable and contradicts international standards and Ukraine’s commitments before its international partners,” the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a Kyiv-based non-profit, said in a statement. “The lawmakers are also likely to fire the current head of the NABU through provisional legal clauses. This undermines the bureau’s independence and creates a very dangerous precedent for the future.”
On Sept. 17, the Verkhovna Rada also appointed controversial members to a commission to choose a new chief anti-corruption prosecutor. Anti-corruption activists say this will undermine SAPO’s independence and integrity.
The President’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
Yurchenko case
While investigating Yurchenko, a NABU agent posed as a representative of a foreign investor who wanted to build a solid waste processing factory to produce biomass that can be used as an alternative fuel in Ukraine.
Yurchenko, a member of the Rada’s energy committee, and his intermediary, Ivan Fishchenko, proposed that the agent give them a bribe to introduce an amendment that would apply the “green tariff” — a higher-than-average price for alternative energy bought by the state — to biomass. The bureau published video and audio footage of conversations between the agent, Yurchenko and Fishchenko in July-September 2020.
Fishchenko denied the accusations of wrongdoing, while Yurchenko did not respond to requests for comment.
Fishchenko told the NABU detective that he must give $3,000 to him and $10,000 to Yurchenko for submitting the amendment to the Rada. Afterwards, the agent, Fishchenko and Yurchenko also discussed a further $200,000 bribe for ensuring that the committee and the Rada vote for the amendments.
Yurchenko and Fishchenko also said the lawmaker was interested in receiving 3% of the biomass factory’s shares.
“Without (the shares), this isn’t interesting to me,” Yurchenko says in the video. “I want a slice of the big pie.”
They said that a majority of the energy committee’s members must be “corrupted” to ensure that the amendment passes.
Fishchenko also said that members of the energy committee had been given bribes worth $50,000 each for amendments involving wind energy. Yurchenko corrected him and said each committee member was supposed to be given an $80,000 bribe.
The head of the energy committee, lawmaker Andriy Gerus, said that the wind energy amendments never passed his committee.
Zelensky’s reaction
Zelensky was silent on his prosecutor general’s initial failure to authorize the charges against Yurchenko, but castigated the lawmaker on Sept. 17.
“Every official, minister and lawmaker must write somewhere in big letters: If you steal, you’ll be jailed, and if you take a bribe, you’ll be jailed,” Zelensky wrote on Facebook.
In a statement, his office said that “Yurchenko has lost his ethical right to be a Verkhovna Rada member.”
That comment stands in stark contrast to Zelensky’s failure to condemn corruption in the NABU’s high-profile case against Pavlo Vovk, head of the Kyiv District Administrative Court. The case has been blocked: Venediktova initially dragged her feet on applying for Vovk’s suspension for weeks, and then the High Council of Justice unanimously refused to suspend him – a decision widely viewed as political.
Zelensky has also defended his Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak from credible corruption accusations.
Earlier, NABU investigated reports of abuse of power and bribery after leaked videos implicated Yermak and his brother Denys in attempting to sell government jobs. The videos showed Denys Yermak discussing the sale of the jobs.
The Yermak brothers have not denied the authenticity of the videos, but Denys Yermak claimed they were taken out of context and denied accusations of wrongdoing
Pressure on NABU
As the NABU took on Zelensky allies and other top officials, pressure on the bureau intensified.
On Sept. 16, the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional several clauses of the Law on the NABU, including those that grant the president the right to create the NABU, formally appoint its chief, appoint members of the commission that selects the chief of the NABU and the audit commission under the presidential quota.
The court said that the Verkhovna Rada has to immediately submit amendments to the NABU law in accordance with the ruling. The clauses that were ruled unconstitutional will now become void in three months.
After the ruling was issued, ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s former deputy chief of staff Andriy Portnov and Yanukovych’s former deputy prosecutor general Renat Kuzmin said that Sytnyk must immediately resign.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn and Oleksandra Ustinova, lawmakers from the Golos party, told the Kyiv Post that Zelensky’s majority in the Verkhovna Rada may use the Constitutional Court ruling as a pretext for passing a law that would fire Sytnyk and appoint a NABU head loyal to Zelensky and his allies. This would destroy the bureau’s independence, according to them.
The Anti-Corruption Action Center said that the Rada may replace Sytnyk with an acting head loyal to Zelensky for an indefinite period and at the same time try to push through constitutional changes on the NABU that would destroy its independence.
Stanislav Shevchuk, former head of the Constitutional Court, told the Kyiv Post that firing Sytnyk based on the Sept. 16 court ruling would be unlawful, and he must serve until his term expires in 2022 under the law.
On Aug. 28, the Constitutional Court also ruled that then-President Petro Poroshenko’s 2015 decree to appoint Sytnyk as head of the bureau was unconstitutional. The court argued that the president’s authority to appoint the NABU chief is not stipulated by the Constitution.
SAPO debacle
The Verkhovna Rada also dealt another blow to anti-corruption institutions on Sept. 17. Parliament appointed seven controversial figures to a commission that will choose a new chief anti-corruption prosecutor to replace Nazar Kholodnytsky, who resigned in August.
Such a commission is likely to choose a loyalist of the current authorities who will be able to block NABU investigations against top incumbent officials, according to civic activists.
The Anti-Corruption Action Center argued that their selection violates the law, which requires them to have an impeccable reputation and moral qualities. The center also said the appointees have little genuine experience in the anti-corruption sphere.
The commission members denied the watchdog’s accusations, arguing that they had enough anti-corruption experience.
Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Center’s executive board, said that some of the members were controlled by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. The minister’s spokeswoman Natalia Stativko declined to comment.
“Members of this commission do not comply with the requirements of anti-corruption experience and high integrity,” Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, said on Facebook. “The European Union, the IMF, G7 ambassadors and the European Parliament have warned the parliament and president against this decision.”
The watchdog also said that “this vote violates the conditions of the visa-free regime and may launch the process of its suspension or review.”
Foreign reaction
Ukraine’s foreign partners have explicitly lambasted the efforts to undermine the independence of the NABU and SAPO.
“Huge concern at (the Verkhovna Rada) vote today on inexperienced candidates lacking high integrity for SAPO Head Selection Commission,” Michael Gahler, a member of the European Parliament, tweeted on Sept. 17. “(It’s a) risk for financial IMF and EU support.”
Meanwhile, the ambassadors of the G7 group of developed countries on Sept. 16 “underscored that Ukraine must demonstrate political will to protect independence of (National Bank of Ukraine) & integrity of institutions like NABU, SAPO, & (High Anti-Corruption Court) to ensure corruption does not erode reform progress made so far.”
The International Monetary Fund also said on Sept. 10 that the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions is a prerequisite for further financial aid.
“The fight against corruption, with strong and independent institutions, is a central part of EU-Ukraine cooperation in areas from visa freedom to macro-financial assistance,” EU Ambassador to Ukraine Matti Maasikas said on Sept. 3. “The principles (of anti-corruption institutions’ independence) also need to apply when the Rada nominates representatives to pick new Head for SAPO.”
