Ukraine has been bravely resisting the Russian invasion for a year. The cold, ugly hands of war have invaded every sphere of our lives, and are testing the strength and resilience not only of us, but of the entire state. But during this time, Ukraine not only withstood, but also showed its undeniable desire to join the great European community. How has Ukraine been holding on in the most terrible battle for survival for a year? Let us tell you in detail. 

February 24, 2022 — this terrible date will imprint in the memory of Ukrainians forever. 4 am, air raid alarm, explosions, endless phone calls from relatives, announcements from all TV screens “Russia attacked Ukraine.” Thus ended a peaceful life for 40 million Ukrainians. And so, the bloody confrontation of life against death began, the struggle of the people for freedom, and the state — for existence. 

During the year of a full-scale war, russians destroyed the Ukrainian infrastructure worth USD 138 bln. According to the Ukrainian government, the European Commission, and the World Bank, the recovery needs amounted to USD 349 bln as of autumn 2022. 

The brave Ukrainian people remain true to their democratic principles and most of all crave victory over the enemy, and after it — the restoration of the country. In its strong-willed confrontation with russia, Ukraine has shown that it is ready to fight until the very end so that every Ukrainian could live freely on their land.

So, it is not surprising that it was at such a difficult time that Ukraine became a candidate for accession to the European Union. Joining the European family was important for us, but now our country has firmly embarked on the path of full-fledged European integration.

And although it is too early to discuss the total losses and needs of Ukraine, we can see the initial results of the resilience of the national anti-corruption ecosystem. 

Over the past 9 years, Ukrainians have shown how they can transform entire sectors and industries, but there is still a lot of work ahead, including the crucial anti-corruption sphere. Let’s take a look at the changes that have taken place in the year of the war.

 

Anti-Corruption: Relevant, Despite Missiles

Successful fight against corruption is one of the main requirements for full membership in the European Union. And this is logical because complex integration into the European economic system requires fair rules of the game, including in the economy, and this is impossible due to the high level of corruption in the country. And here Ukraine, even during martial law, has already taken many important steps that allow it to systematically combat the problem of bribery.

In 2019, an anti-corruption infrastructure was finally formed in Ukraine. It consists of 5 main state bodies, each has its own specialization:

  •     National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP);
  •     National Agency of Ukraine for finding, tracing and management of assets derived from corruption and other crimes (ARMA);
  •     National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU);
  •     Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO);
  •     High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC).

All of them have proved their resilience and continue to work during the war. Cases of corruption are investigated, studied, and considered in court. Thus, for the year of opposition to russian aggression in Ukraine, more than 33 verdicts were delivered for high-profile corruption. In 2022, the NABU launched 456 investigations, served 187 persons with charges, and referred 54 indictments to the court, of which 9 concerned MPs.

This testifies to the coordinated work of the anti-corruption infrastructure and its focus on the fight against internal enemies — bribery and corruption schemes.

However, at the same time, employees of the anti-corruption ecosystem do not forget about the fight against the external enemy — the aggressor state russia; in the first days of the war, some helped with the analysis of information, and some workers went to the front or are helping the military. For example, the former acting head, and now SAPO prosecutor Maksym Hryshchuk continues to fight in the grenade launcher unit of the Kyiv territorial defense brigade, and NABU detectives help demine the de-occupied territories. 

Over the year, there have been many changes in the work of the anti-corruption infrastructure of Ukraine, including personnel. Thus, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office finally got its head — Oleksandr Klymenko. In the competition for the election of the NABU head, all stages are actively going according to the plan. This is important because in the conditions of providing financial assistance to Ukraine, the EU mentions this crucial selection. The election of a professional and honest director is a condition for the beginning of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union. At the same time, the process of selecting the ARMA head is somewhat “stalled,” but it is still moving. In February, the High Anti-Corruption Court announced that it elected the next Head of the Court — Vira Mykhailenko, who was positively marked by the public sector and experts.

As for the legislation, the Criminal Procedural Code and the Criminal Code have undergone significant changes. For example, Ukraine is now changing interim measures for suspects in custody if they join the ranks of the Armed Forces. The long-awaited step was the adoption of the Anti-Corruption Strategy of Ukraine until 2025. Another legislative change was the suspension of the obligation to declare until the end of martial law. As for the latter, this is a serious challenge for the anti-corruption reform. Now, it is necessary to restore the submission and verification of declarations, as well as public access to the register of declarations of officials.

The ARMA received new powers in the conditions of the full-scale war; among them is the management of russian assets, which can be transferred to it by the court. This is a difficult challenge because the management of any property requires knowledge and specialists from various fields. Moreover, now the Agency can buy domestic government bonds, which supports the national budget in such difficult times for the country.

Speaking of the NABU, detectives also began to work with new tasks. For example, they are looking for property of russians, which may be subject to confiscation. The NACP is working in a related topic, having created the War and Sanctions portal together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — it collects information about all sanctioned persons and their property in Ukraine and abroad.

These are new activities for such institutions. It is logical that during the war, the state mobilizes all available resources to effectively confront all possible challenges in the public sphere, and, of course, to win. And the fact that these bodies can combine both their usual work and a new one is an achievement to be proud of.

Ukrainians themselves, of course, have also changed a lot during this time. Thus, according to the “Engage!” program, as of November 2022, 64% of Ukrainians believe that corruption cannot be justified (in 2021 — 40%), and 84% are ready to report cases of corruption (44% in 2021). The entire people of Ukraine are united as never before, and the social orientation towards European integration also creates the foundations for further effective fight against corruption. Despite the war in Ukraine, freedom of speech has not disappeared, so where the state misses something, public organizations and journalists successfully provide support. Even with limited access to data, they are constantly monitoring and investigating alleged abuses by government officials and preventing dishonest officials from profiting from the war.

 

Public Procurement: Struggle for Transparency

The procurement system of Ukraine was rebooted and improved in 2016 — then Prozorro was created. This is a portal where all public procurement transactions are published, and everyone can view all the details about them, and the business gets equal access to tenders online. 

However, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, these rules had to be partially abandoned — procurement had to be sharply simplified and accelerated. To provide the state with the necessities in the conditions of the full-scale war, budgetary institutions were allowed to sign contracts directly and report on it after the end of the martial law. Mandatory reporting at least on the availability of procurement, although without the publication of the contract, was restored in autumn 2022. 

Therefore, it is currently impossible to know exactly how many tenders there were during the year and for what amounts. 2.68 million lots for USD 19.3 bln were announced publicly on Prozorro. 242,720 procurement transactions for USD 10.7 bln were competitive — that is, available for the competition of anyone on the portal. 

The restoration of competition in public procurement began to be talked about in April-May 2022, when the situation in the rear stabilized slightly. However, the first significant step for this was taken at the end of June — but then the mechanisms used did not fully fit the new conditions. In addition, there were still quite a few exceptions when procuring entities could buy something directly and not disclose the information about it. Therefore, since October 19, new rules started functioning in Prozorro, including the obligation to report on direct procurement immediately, and open bidding with features — a mechanism that was created during the martial law. This is a simplified and accelerated procedure specifically for working in war-changed conditions.

Returning to competitive procurement is a crucial step in the field this year. It allows the state to save money and receive the highest quality goods, businesses to have equal access to budget orders, and citizens to control public spending. 

Unfortunately, the lack of transparency in procurement had its consequences — at the beginning of 2023, Ukraine was rocked by two high-profile corruption scandals, both related to procurement. Investigative journalists, as well as supervisory and anti-corruption bodies, continue to find cases of potential overpayments, division of orders between selected companies, and other abuses. At the same time, opportunities for civic monitoring of public procurement are still limited — precisely because of the lack of open data. 

For now, we need more transparency and competitive environment, particularly in defense procurement (not weapons). In addition, procurement for the restoration of Ukraine, which has partially already begun, also needs to be carried out in Prozorro. This will allow tracking all stages of procurement and preventing corruption in them.

 

Local Level: Sustainable Rear and Self-Organization

Ukraine survived the war in particular thanks to the resilience of cities that continue to hold the rear and help our heroic warriors. Even before the full-scale invasion of russia, decentralization reform had been conducted in the country. As a result, each city, town, or village head became the leader of their community. Even with the seizure of the regional center, russians could not retain control over all hromadas. This broke the logic of the occupier, for whom the capture of the “heart” of the oblast automatically meant control over its entire territory. 

Decentralization has developed local self-government, allowing quick decisions to be made locally. And this, in turn, made it possible to repel the enemy quite successfully.

Ukrainian cities are seeking any opportunities to strengthen their resilience. Thus, since the beginning of the war, many of them have used the tool of twinning — the cooperation of cities at the level of municipalities to achieve common goals. At the same time, they broke off partnership agreements with russian cities and were searching for new friends around the world. According to the Association of Ukrainian Cities, more than 100 Ukrainian cities have about 700 twin cities in different countries of the world.

As for the level of transparency of local councils, the situation is ambiguous. On the one hand, Ukraine, until recently the leader in the publication of open data (6th among 34 European countries), should now restrict access to information because some data can be useful to the enemy. On the other hand, under the guise of such a reason, there is abuse.

TI Ukraine used to conduct Transparency and Accountability Rankings of cities, and this was an indicative study that allowed tracking the progress of the same cities from year to year. However, it is obviously impossible to conduct such research now because some cities are occupied, and others are close to the line of contact. 

Instead, the team conducted another analysis — regarding the publication of data sets, which may also indicate the openness of the work of city councils. And although on average Ukrainian cities publish 25% of the necessary data sets, there are also bold examples. Consider at least Dnipro, which, despite its proximity to the contact line, is among those cities that publish the largest number of data sets.

In general, the local authorities are doing their best not only in the temporarily occupied territories, but also far from active hostilities. We are talking both about small rural communities and large cities. Humanitarian headquarters, assistance centers for internally displaced persons are deployed throughout the country, communities are finding different ways to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The rear regions massively collect funds, prepare provisions for the military, purchase the necessary equipment, weave camouflage nets, etc.

But at the same time, among local officials, as in peacetime, scandalous stories happen with exposures and serving with charges by law enforcement officers. For example, this situation occurred in Dnipro in summer — regarding the construction of roads according to an opaque scheme. A little later, NABU and SSU detectives conducted more than 20 searches in Zaporizhzhia city council, regional administration, warehouses because of suspicion of embezzlement of humanitarian aid.

As we can see, at the local level, there is a deterioration in openness, but an improvement in community resilience.

***

If we look comprehensively at the picture of anti-corruption measures in Ukraine, we see that the situation in the fight against high-profile corruption and local abuses is different and requires special approaches.

However, the citizens of Ukraine themselves show an unshakable desire to join the European family, and therefore share European values, including intolerance to bribery and schematism.

In the future, this bold state is in for a large-scale rebuilding. And the way it will conduct it, and what safeguards for abuse it will establish, will ultimately show how quickly Ukraine will be able to join the EU. All this is possible only with the constant support of our European friends — both in the matter of financial aid and at the level of political assistance. 

Now, the whole world sees Ukraine’s readiness to defend its values on the battlefield, but it is up to us to do so in other spheres as well. Much has already been done, much more is to be done, but the Ukrainian society is ready for such changes, and understanding that we are not alone on this path gives more confidence in the successful completion of all the reforms that have been launched. After all, it is unity and readiness for mutual assistance that creates the unbreakable force that for centuries has allowed Europe to go through the most difficult times.

 

This publication was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents and opinions expressed herein are the exclusive responsibility of [name of the organization] and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States government.

About SACCI: The Support to Anti-Corruption Champion Institutions (SACCI) Program in Ukraine is a seven-year USAID initiative that has an objective to assist Ukraine to reduce corruption and increase the accountability and transparency of governance in Ukraine. SACCI pursues three objectives: (1) empower key government institutions to fight corruption; (2) increase public support for and engagement in anti-corruption (AC) efforts; and (3) reduce public tolerance of corrupt practices and increase transparency and accountability of post-war recovery of Ukraine.

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