Poroshenko dismisses border head, urges support for anti-corruption bill

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed on Oct. 6 a decree dismissing Mykola Lytvyn as head of the State Border Service and Gen. Pavlo Shysholin as his first deputy. Lytvyn first submitted his resignation in June.

Poroshenko hopes parliament will approve anti-corruption legislation at its session today, reported his press secretary, Sviatoslav Tsegolko, on his Facebook page on Oct. 6. The legislation is important for Ukraine to fulfill its international obligations and the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, he said, quoting the president. “The delay or rejection of these bills creates exceptionally serious problems and I would ask that we all responsibly approach them considering they’ve been developed with the participation of many civic organizations and are gaining quite significant publicity,” Tsegolko wrote, quoting the president.

Anton Davidenko, an Odesa separatist leader, told a Russian television network on Oct. 6 that he was able to gain his freedom owing to corruption in the Ukrainian courts. “I was imprisoned for five months because I acknowledged that I want to create the Novorossiya republic,” he said. “And of course, my freedom was gained in relation to corrupt schemes in our courts now.”

Davidenko said he escaped to Moldova’s Russian-aligned Prydnistrovia region and is now in Crimea, working to renew the separatist movement in Odesa. A Kyiv court sentenced Davidenko to a five-year prison term in July for encroaching on Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Yet a local news site reported that Davydenko was released on probation for three years after acknowledging his guilt.

Zenon Zawada: It took a very long time for the dismissal of Lytvyn, who’s been accused from incompetence to corruption in failing to ensure the security of the Russian-Ukrainian border. And whether it’s owing to corruption or leniency by prosecutors, the fact that Davidenko is free reflects a failure of the judicial system to uphold the law properly and ensure the state’s security.

Such incidents, of which there are many more, call into question Poroshenko’s eagerness to address corruption and incompetence. Without seeing its details, anti-corruption legislation is a step in the right direction. But it’s meaningless without political will from the very top to fulfill its provisions.

Despite his claims to have this will, Poroshenko has yet to demonstrate it. If it doesn’t surface by wintertime, public trust in the government will erode even further. Even worse, pro-Russian forces, including separatists like Davidenko, will exploit Poroshenko’s failure to address corruption to sow dissatisfaction among the public, which has to potential to further destabilize the government and society. As Davidenko demonstrated, corruption can be conveniently scapegoated for negative events, even when that’s not the case at all.