Noticing Achievements Is not Hard

The second year of the full-scale invasion is significantly different from the first one. We will remember the past 2022 as a year when Ukrainians united in their desire to repel the Russian invasion. 2023 was completely different and, apparently, everyone feels so. Allow me to share my thoughts on why this is happening. 

In 2022, we set aside or paused most of the priorities and focused on one common task — to repel the Russians. We had achievements and losses, but still, we closed the previous year with a positive feeling, although the unity we had witnessed in spring was at a lower level.  

But 2023 somewhat changed the picture of the Ukrainian worldview and was largely about countering corruption in information and political terms. Throughout the year, the country was shaken by news not only from the frontline, but from the offices of officials, politicians, or judges. Scandals with eggs, jackets, detentions, sentences, political confrontations: all the things that were not so striking in the first year of the full-scale war reappeared.  

Given all this, Ukrainian society and international partners expect not only military achievements over Russia, but also reforms. A special place in the hierarchy of these priorities is given to the issue of combating corruption.  

According to the results of the second wave of sociological research, which we in TI Ukraine conducted together with the research agency Info Sapiens, at the end of the year, Ukrainians outlined three main problems: war — 96%, corruption — 88%, and destruction of infrastructure — 82%. What’s important, compared to the first wave of the research, which we conducted in March, the mood of Ukrainians has notably changed. In six months, the population began to have fewer concerns about war and destruction, while fears of corruption, on the contrary, increased by 11%.  

The issue of corruption arises every time within the framework of negotiations with our Western partners. It is logical that everyone has high expectations from Ukraine and its anti-corruption infrastructure. But let’s take a factual look at the results of the anti-corruption bodies as of the end of this year. 

In the first half of 2023, the NABU and the SAPO launched 286 investigations and served defendants with 137 suspicion notices, including 7 judges and 8 MPs.  

In the 11 months of the year, 56 defendants were convicted.

In total, the NABU-SAPO “caught” a lot of big fish this year. The largest of them got on the hook of detectives in the walls of the highest judicial institution of the state — the Supreme Court. Vsevolod Kniaziev, the head of the Supreme Court, was caught allegedly receiving a bribe of USD 2.7 mln. There was also information in the media that up to 13 judges of the Supreme Court could be involved in this corruption scheme. 

But there were other high-profile cases:

1. Vasyl Lozynskyi, Deputy Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development. He is suspected of receiving a bribe of USD 400,000 on the procurement of generators and other equipment for UkrNDIvodokanalproekt. He was detained in January. 
2. Dmytro Sennychenko, ex-head of the SPFU. Presumably, he headed a criminal group that in 2019-2021 embezzled UAH 500+ mln of funds from state-owned enterprises, in particular the Odesa Portside Plant and the UMCC. He was served with a suspicion notice in March.
3. Maksym Mykytas, ex-MP. He was served with another suspicion notice in 2023; this time, he was charged with embezzling UAH 307 mln of the Ministry of Defense, which was intended for the construction of protected storage warehouses for missiles and ammunition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He was served with a suspicion notice in October. 
4. 4 current MPs. Two of them, Andrii Odarchenko and Serhii Labaziuk, were exposed trying to bribe Mustafa Nayyem and Oleksandr Kubrakov. In July, detectives exposed MP Liudmyla Marchenko. The video of the NABU showed her throwing a bribe over the fence. She is suspected of illegal aiding men of military age to cross the border using the Shliakh (Way) system. In August, MP Anatolii Hunko was caught red-handed and suspected of receiving a bribe of USD 85,000. 
5. The leadership of the State Special Communications Service, ex-head Yurii Shchyhol and his deputy Viktor Zhora, have also been served with suspicion notices recently for abuse in software procurement.
6. At the end of autumn, the NABU-SAPO exposed four judges of the Kyiv Court of Appeal for receiving USD 35,000. These judges were Yurii Slyva, Viktor Hlynianyi, Ihor Palenyk, and Viacheslav Dziubin.

Now let’s cover some statistics on the HACC. In the 4 years of work (as of September 2023), the HACC acquitted 23 persons and convicted 159. A total of 44 people (21%) were exempted from criminal liability or punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. And this is not considering the data of the HACC Appeals Chamber. 

The high-profile sentences of 2023 include: ex-judge Chaus (10 years with confiscation of property), ex-prosecutor Dmytro Sus (9 years in prison, the HACC AC reduced the term to 7 years), ex-minister of ecology Mykola Zlochevskyi (concluded a plea agreement, transferred UAH 660 mln to the needs of the AFU and was fined UAH 68,000). 

We are also expecting the verdict regarding the fugitive ex-MP Oleksandr Onyshchenko in the near future. The decision in this case could have been adopted in November, but when the judges went to the deliberations room, it turned out that two disks with some evidence were damaged, so the court resumed consideration to study them. 

But not everything was smooth this year; there were also problematic issues that either arose, or intensified, or simply remained from previous years.  

Among them is the selective closure of all information about verdicts in cases where a plea agreement was concluded. This is especially true of high-profile cases that attract the attention of society, such as the cases of Valerii Patskan, the ex-chairperson of the Accounting Chamber, or Oleh Horetskyi, the lawyer-intermediary in the case of Kniaziev, or Mykola Zlochevsky. The reasons for the closure of information on the sentences are unknown. However, the number of such classified sentences is insignificant: only 12 out of 150. The main thing is that this trend does not increase.  

The notorious “Lozovyi’s Amendments” are another stumbling block for the HACC justice. Because of them, more than one high-profile case was closed, such as the Rotterdam+ case, the Ukrzaliznytsia case, the Dubnevych brothers case, and the Oschadbank case. The amendments also became an obstacle to the selection of interim measures in the PrivatBank case. This month, MPs cancelled them only partially. Therefore, judges are still authorized to close old cases based on the “amendments,” so some of them might not be saved. 

I deliberately do not mention other bodies here, such as the NACP or the ARMA, because in some cases, they had no powers, and in others, they simply could not manage.

Instead of a conclusion

In my opinion, one of the key problems of Ukrainians is the reluctance to see a silver lining. We are always dissatisfied with anything that has not been done 101%. We complain that we did not drink coffee in Crimea in summer, but we forget that we almost completely expelled the Black Sea Fleet from the peninsula. We sometimes rightly complain about inflated prices in public procurement, but often we do not notice cases when procuring entities (the state) respond and reduce the price. We say there are few convictions, but the numbers of sentences and cases prove otherwise. 

I hope that next year we will learn to see the positive side of things and our achievements and, what is important, we will not lose the sense of reality and the overall picture.  

Therefore, I will only say this: support the defense forces — without them, all our efforts will be in vain.

Let’s make Ukraine stronger together!

Thanks to the AFU!