Anti-corruption protests in Ukraine

Hello,

In this video, I discuss the turmoil about the independence of anti-corruption agencies in Ukraine. It has been a dramatic week where Ukrainian domestic politics suddenly dominated the agenda.

Watch the video on the website or read the transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

Hi. If you feel it's been a little quiet from my side over the last couple of weeks, that's because I am on vacation and I'm trying to take a bit of time off. But I wanted to just make a quick video about this whole Zelensky anti-corruption law thing that has been all over the media the last couple of days and has even caused Ukrainians to go on streets and protest against the Zelensky government and this decision. Now it seems that Zelensky is reversing course and he's going to be reinstating the independence of these anti-corruption agencies that the whole thing was about. So it's been very interesting to follow.

I want to just share a few thoughts on how I think we can understand this as foreigners or how we can think about what happened and what it means. And it's probably going to be one of those on the one hand, on the other hand kind of videos.

Because on the one hand, the argument that Zelensky and the government in Ukraine have used is that these anti-corruption agencies have been infiltrated by Russians or that they are under Russian influence. And that is a real problem in Ukraine. Russian influence and Russian infiltration is something that the Ukrainians deal with on a daily basis. Even intelligence agencies or the presidential administration, any agency is vulnerable to this.

And it's clear that something like an anti-corruption body that is independent of political control is something that the Russians would be extremely interested in getting into because they have access to investigate almost anything in Ukraine, look into all corners of the public bureaucracy, and also they can raise cases that will have a huge public impact. So this is something that needs to be taken seriously.

But on the other hand, I think it's very important also that we in the West acknowledge that Ukrainian politics are also about power politics and that there is a whole bunch of domestic politics in Ukraine that we don't see on a daily basis. We see things that are related to the war. We see things where we have some kind of common interest with the Ukrainians or something that is related to foreign politics, but there is a whole lot of things going on in Ukrainian politics that we don't see.

That the power struggle is something that is a real concern, and especially during these times when there's martial law in Ukraine, that means that many of the usual checks and balances in government are not there anymore because there is martial law, and that means that the presidential administration will have more power to make decisions.

And most importantly, there is this whole question about elections and that there can't be any elections as long as there is martial law. And that means that if you are unsatisfied with the politicians, there is no way to change them.

Zelensky is in a unique position because he's democratically elected, but he has a majority. His party has a majority in parliament, so he has a lot of power. And then this happened, the martial law, which means that he can't be voted out and he can't lose that majority that he has in parliament, which means that he has, even though he's democratically elected – he's absolutely democratically legitimate as president in Ukraine, and this is a temporary arrangement – but still, for the time being, he has power that goes well beyond most other state leaders in democratic countries. So he will be, if you look at it domestically, he will be one of the most powerful presidents or state leaders that we have in Europe at all.

So there's a lot of concern about how he deals with that power and what he does with it, and that the remaining checks and balances that there are, are kept sacred. And I think that's what happened here.

These anti-corruption bodies are some of the few remaining checks and balances in the Ukrainian system. When this decision was made to put them under the control of the presidential administration, that undermines some of the last remaining checks and balances.

And it just looks really bad, and it's really concerning. Because no matter what person that is in power for a very long period of time – there is a saying that power corrupts – over time you do end up in a situation where you maybe lose some of the touch that you used to have with the people. You become used to having the power. You become used to some of the privileges, but also that you can make these kinds of decisions.

And it's a real concern that when you have someone like Zelensky, who has this much power as he does, all legitimate, that over time, he might start getting the feeling that, well, "why do I need to go through all these different annoying processes for this or that? Because I know that in the end, I'm going to get things the way I want it anyways, because I have the power to do that. So why can't we just skip all those intermediate discussions and those things?"

That is the slippery slope that is concerning and that is very, very human. So I think that these are the kinds of things we need to be very careful about, making sure that from the outside that we understand how important it is that the remaining checks and balances in Ukraine stay in place.

And I think this is where Zelensky got this wrong. He underestimated how serious the Ukrainian people would take this, but also the donor countries. The problem is that when you have these foreign donors who give money to Ukraine, which is a country that historically has had serious problems with corruption, then there needs to be some kind of guarantee or some procedures in place to make sure that we can donate money and feel confident that this is not going into corruption, but that it is actually going to the things that we want to support, which is typically the war effort or something in the Ukrainian society.

And that is why having these independent bodies is so important. The reality is that I think most Western countries probably don't have so completely independent anti-corruption agencies as Ukraine does. So in some sense, you could say that Ukraine maybe even had better procedures than we do in many other European countries and the United States.

But the reality is just that Ukraine is in a unique position where they receive huge donations. And there are so few checks and balances that it is important that those that are there remain in place. So we can keep on having things like the Danish model where European countries invest directly in the Ukrainian defense industry to make sure that the money for military support are used most wisely. But that requires that there is accountability for these things. And that's why it's so important to have these independent agencies.

So I think ultimately this was a misjudgment from Zelensky to go this way. And I think it's good that it now looks like he's reversing course and we will see the independence of these agencies reinstated.

I think the concerning thing here is how did he end up in making this misjudgment? How did he not see what the reaction would be to this, both in the Ukrainian people and in the donor countries? I hope that this was just a one-off and that we will see Zelensky going forward, that he learned something from this and that that that was it. That now we we don't have to deal with this again. But it's definitely something we should be aware of and focus on.

And I think it's just super annoying from a Western point of view to have had this case. Because the thing is, what we want is to help Ukraine fight this war. We have a shared interest. We have a shared project with Ukraine about supporting them in this war against Russia. And then suddenly this comes up. Something out of Ukrainian domestic politics that has nothing to do with the war. Or nothing to do with the things that we are interested in, really, but that just creates trouble.

So it's annoying and it's something that needs to be dealt with because potentially it gives a lot of fuel to those people who argue that we should stop helping Ukraine so much because it's a corrupt country and all those things.

The reality is that as long as this war goes on then unfortunately Ukraine's democracy is struggling. It's a young democracy, and it's a democracy that needs to have good established procedures for all kinds of things. But there are so many things that just can't happen right now because there is martial law.

We can't have elections. It's important not to have premature elections. That could be even worse than having no elections. But what's really important is to bring Ukraine to the point where martial law can be lifted so that we can get back to having some of the normal procedures of democracy.

So I think it's important that we, from a Western point of view, acknowledge these things. I don't think I've talked about anti-corruption initiatives before, but I have talked before, after I came home from Ukraine some months ago, about the problems they have with freedom of the press, where I also experienced a lot of concern about how the press is also being controlled too much from the presidential administration.

So it's important that we acknowledge that these are discussions that are actually very real in Ukraine. The Ukrainians understand the situation that they are in. They understand why martial law is necessary and what that means. But those remaining checks and balances are really, really important. And it is a goal to restore normal procedures as quickly as possible.

All right. That ended up as a much longer video than I thought it would. But I thought this was important, to talk about this case because it is really the first time we have seen a reaction like what we have over the last couple of days against the Zelensky administration. Hopefully, it was just a mistake, and now we are back on track. Let's hope that. All right. Talk to you soon.