Parliament dismisses top prosecutor as Zelensky ignores U.S. objections

Ukraine’s parliament voted on Mar. 5 to dismiss Ruslan
Riaboshapka as prosecutor general, citing his failure to prosecute high-profile
crimes, including those involving former President Poroshenko. The no
confidence vote was supported by a large segment of The People’s Servant
faction loyal to tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky (179 votes), the For the Future group
of MPs loyal to Kolomoisky (about 22 votes), the Trust group of MPs (about 17
votes), as well as a majority of the pro-Putin faction, the Opposition Platform
For Life (36 votes). “Our country is at war. Our country is in crisis. No one
has been imprisoned. No one has been punished. No one has been held
responsible. But is not simply inactivity. This is deliberate work for
interested individuals,” People’s Servant MP Maksym Buzhanskiy told parliament
from the tribune.

The vote was endorsed by President Zelensky, who made
his decision to dismiss Riaboshapka after the prosecutor general attended a G7
ambassadors meeting on Mar. 3 in Kyiv to gain their endorsement, amid reports
that his dismissal was being contemplated, as reported by the pravda.com.ua
news site. Riaboshapka also had the backing of the U.S. State Department, whose
officials placed phone calls to Zelensky urging him to keep Riaboshapka, as
reported by the pravda.com.ua news site on Mar. 5. “Zelensky crossed a red line
with this dismissal. Pro-Russian forces wanted to get rid of Riaboshapka
already in the fall. This situation has shown that he no longer is listening to
the arguments of Western partners,” said an anonymous source in the U.S.
embassy in Ukraine.

As his defense, Riaboshapka pointed to reforms he
began in the office, most notably the wholesale recertification of prosecutors nationally
involving a standardized test and an interview. He also said that he couldn’t
prosecute many cases because they are being pursued by the independent National
Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
Vitaliy Kasko, the deputy prosecutor general who has long been endorsed by the
U.S., announced his resignation today.

Zenon Zawada: Riaboshapka
seemed to prefer moving slowly in implementing his reforms, and that turned out
to be a costly mistake. The public, regardless of political preferences, wanted
to see immediate action from the prosecutor general, and got little of it from
the camera-shy lawyer. A large segment of the public also wanted to see aggressive
prosecution of former President Poroshenko, which Riaboshapka failed to deliver
on. He drew much criticism in the last week for failing to sign notice of
suspicions on at least three criminal cases against Poroshenko.

The first major moves since the new cabinet was
installed indicate that Zelensky, at the direction of Kolomoisky, is moving
towards a rapprochement with Russia and away from the West. Or he is moving
away from the U.S., at minimum, whose officials viewed the decision to dismiss
Riaboshapka as crossing a red line. Even more important, Zelensky appears to be
abandoning plans to secure an IMF loan program in favor of populist politics.
Kolomoisky had been urging this path, partly because the IMF wants legislation
to ensure the tycoon will never regain control of Privatbank. Meanwhile, the
new prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has not only called for higher social
payments, a typical red line for the IMF, but also supplying water to Crimea,
considered to be a red line by Ukraine’s pro-Western electorate.

All this makes sense considering that Andriy
Yermak, the new head of the President’s Office, is currently working hard to
offer concessions to Russia in order to reach a peace deal in Donbas. These
include holding local elections there in the fall, under highly questionable
conditions. This also makes sense in light of the fact that Zelensky’s core
electorate lies in the Russophile southeastern cities. So with these latest
moves, Zelensky seems to be adjusting to the needs of Ukraine’s political jungle.
However, his survival in this jungle may come at the expense of structural
reforms, improved rule of law, a legitimate fight against corruption and
Ukraine’s overall Euro-Atlantic integration.