Latest corruption cases pursued by authorities

Pavlo Bukin, the former general director of the
Ukroboronprom state monopoly, was named a suspect on Nov. 12 in a crimninal
case for failing to declare assets opened by the National Anti-Corruption
Bureau of Ukraine, as reported by the pravda.com.ua news site. The assets
include two apartments with a combined value of more than UAH 3 mln, as well as
a car worth UAH 10 mln. Before becoming general director of Ukroboronprom in
2018, Bukin led Ukrspetseksport, the state monopoly overseeing the foreign
trade of military hardware.

Ukraine’s parliament, led by The People’s Servant
party aligned with the president, voted on Nov. 12 to approve in the first
reading a bill liquidating intermediary firms alleged to have provided illicit
revenue for MP Anton Yatsenko. These firms siphoned at least UAH 23 mln from
payments made by private companies to conduct appraisals of real estate being
sold by the State Property Fund, as alleged by a news report in August 2018 by
the bihus.info news site. A scandal erupted in late October when the
Specialized Anti-Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal case against 11 MPs on
the parliamentary finance, tax and customs policy committee for each allegedly
taking a USD 30K bribe for withdrawing support for legislation to eliminate
Yatsenko’s intermediaries.

Zenon Zawada: These cases
are evidence of some genuine effort among authorities in the fight against
corruption. Yet without convictions in court and punishment rendered in these
or other cases, the Zelensky administration’s efforts won’t be taken seriously
by the public. In the case of the Yatsenko scandal, no further progress has
been announced in determining whether bribes were truly paid to undermine
efforts to liquidate the corrupt intermediaries.