The country of the victorious Maidan: Thief against thief, thief drives
Kyiv, April 22 (Navigator, Vladimir Mikhailov, Victoria Litovchenko, Mikhail Ryabov) – The new leadership of Ukraine, which promised from the Maidan stage to put an end to corruption, steals no less, and sometimes even worse, than its predecessors. The fight against “criminal power” and European integration turned out to be just nice words, according to experts interviewed by Navigator. Even the “martial law” that the provisional government is shouting about is being used to line their pockets under the guise of patriotic slogans.
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The Maidan turned out to be just a change of sign - all corruption schemes in the “grain” ministries have been preserved, the Ukrainian press claims. The Reporter magazine cites as an example the Ministry of Agriculture, which is headed by Svoboda member Igor Shvaika. He left his old deputies in their jobs, apparently successfully supervising cash flows.
The situation is similar in the construction industry. Journalists give prices: the scientific and technical council of the Ministry of Regional Development continues to approve projects for $15000, the architectural and construction inspection registers declarations of the start of construction for 5-10 dollars per square meter of area.
“Auctions, tenders, personnel appointments, VAT, customs. Only the observers have changed, and not everywhere,” states political scientist Sergei Belashko.
Odessa is the largest port in Ukraine. Before the Maidan, the country was regularly agitated by rumors about fabulous profits from bribes for customs clearance. After the revolution, nothing changes in Odessa, city council deputy Igor Dimitriev told Navigator.
“All the most profitable schemes continue to operate. No one is going to refuse them: the temptation is too great,” he asserts, adding that recently the size of bribes has even increased – people feel “they will soon be pushed”, so they are trying to “squeeze them out” as much as possible. Thus, unofficial prices for processing documents in Odessa have already increased 1,5 times, the opposition deputy clarifies.
“They carry money for positions in KAMAZ trucks while people are going wild on the Maidans,” is a phrase I have heard from mid-level officials since the beginning of this year. These officials did not go anywhere, because otherwise the state machine in Ukraine would simply cease to exist. Officials can observe the changes that are taking place in the sphere of government. But these changes are not reassuring. Those ideas and goals that the so-called. “Maidan” not only have not been achieved, they have been completely forgotten. Or implemented in a perverted form. Thanks to Euromaidan, the positions of a judge, prosecutor or governor simply increased in price. At the same time, the role of these characters has decreased significantly. Although many, by inertia, are willing to pay to get a high position. In the area of raiding, it is now much easier to hire a group of young slackers who will take the flags of the Right Sector and seize an enterprise without bothering too much with the legal justification for their actions. The same thing happens in other areas. Criminal cases are being initiated against past offenders, and bribes are increasing. There is a feeling that officials live every day as if it were their last. This fact does not paint rosy prospects for the future of Ukraine,” Zakhar Chistyakov, an expert on the PR and hostile takeover market, comments to Navigator.
Political scientist Vasily Stoyakin agrees with this assessment.
“The earth is full of rumors that all appointments of heads of the Internal Affairs Directorate were made according to the old scheme, but according to new tariffs. In general, what kind of fight against corruption can we talk about if law enforcement agencies are demoralized and disorganized, and a special body has been created to fight corruption without status, but with a scandalous journalist at its head?” – the analyst argues in a conversation with an agency correspondent.
Economist Oleg Soskin clarifies that we are talking about theft in the highest echelons of the new government, and not bribery by middle-level clerks. “The situation with corruption in Ukraine has not improved, and has probably even become somewhat worse. The entire previous system has been preserved, the same corruption schemes remain. The system of kickbacks has been preserved everywhere; money is still taken during appointments. Appointment to posts is carried out according to the same schemes as before. Turchinov appoints the right people to posts in district and regional administrations in batches. Appointments to the Cabinet of Ministers are now completely opaque. If we take the Ministry of Internal Affairs, then the so-called The “Anti-Corruption Committee” is supposedly carrying out some actions to combat corruption, but this is just window dressing. In fact, the “right” people are appointed to the right places,” the Navigator’s interlocutor lists.
The much-publicized signing of an association agreement with the EU did not bring any benefit to business, admits Alex Lissitsa, president of the Ukrainian Agricultural Business Club. According to him, Ukrainian grains were previously exported around the world without problems. Now the new government is constantly changing the rules on the market - no promised breakthrough is happening.
“What the government is doing in the tax sphere is complete bullshit. Because the mess they created for us regarding VAT when exporting grain crops cannot be described in other words,” says the businessman in an interview with Korrespondent magazine.
They even manage to use the threat of a Russian invasion to line their pockets. Thus, the Verkhovna Rada, under the pretext of “martial law,” allowed the Ministry of Defense to carry out emergency purchases without holding tenders. Soon the press recorded how luck smiled on the oligarch close to the government, Igor Kolomoisky - his companies sold fuel to the military for tens of millions of hryvnia.
“Strategically thinking oligarchs began to privatize the country in entire regions and industries,” explains political scientist Belashko.
“One could write poems about the warm and friendly relations of the new government with Kolomoisky,” Stoyakin agrees with his colleague.
“If previously representatives of big capital acted by promoting their creatures in power, now they themselves are in power and head administrations. Surrounded by oligarchs, many people are involved in corruption schemes. Nowadays there is a lot of talk about lustration. Lustration is a fashionable, big word. But, in fact, this is just a form of cleaning. Such purges have already happened in Ukraine after the events of 2004,” Georgy Kryuchkov, former head of the parliamentary defense committee, tells Navigator.
As analysts note, the “revolutionary” government has been ruling for only a few weeks, but Ukraine is already flying into the abyss. Kyiv is unsuccessfully trying to control the situation, and the result is a collapse of the hryvnia exchange rate, rising prices, tariffs, extortions, bribes, and loss of territories. Against this background, there is an enrichment of a small group of people who have gained access to financial flows. It seems that this is the only thing that the new leaders of Ukraine are doing well.
English version :: Read in English The Country of the Victorious Maidan: A thief chases a thief