Poroshenko appoints confidante as SBU head

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree on June 18 appointing Vasyl Hrytsak as the acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), replacing Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, who was dismissed by parliament the same day.  In a private presentation ceremony, Poroshenko said he was “extremely dissatisfied” with the SBU’s work in fighting corruption and contraband, reported the pravda. com. ua news site.

Hrytsak has worked in the SBU since the 1990s, when he was the deputy head of the SBU’s anti-terrorist division. He later led the SBU administration of the Kyiv region, and then the city of Kyiv in 2008. Most notably, he became the head of Poroshenko’s personal security service after Viktor Yanukovych took over the presidency in 2010, reported the vesti-ukr.com news site. Poroshenko signed a June 19 decree dismissing four deputy heads of the SBU, including Yuriy Artiukhov, who was recently accused of corruption by MPs.

Zenon Zawada: It was widely expected that Poroshenko would appoint a trusted confidante as SBU head, which matches the pattern of all his other personnel appointments. Hrytsak’s confirmation is the latest evidence that it’s business as usual in government, with Poroshenko more concerned about his establishing his hierarchy of power than reforming the government.

It could very well be that Poroshenko feels as though he can’t conduct reforms with all the enmity he’s facing, not only from Putin but his rival billionaire oligarchs. Yet from our end, it’s necessary to point out that the government is not adapting Western practices in personnel appointments, which are supposed to be merit-based. Personnel apppointments in Ukraine are still determined by personal allegiances and oligarch clan politics, and that won’t change anytime soon.

To the president’s credit, he did dismiss at least one SBU head accused of corruption. But as usual, there won’t be any court trial, no criminal conviction and the dismissed officials are likely to find other employment in government. So we can hardly see any progress in this, beyond the sense that the president does respond to public discontent (within the bounds of the unwritten rules of the oligarchic system of loyalties), while his predecessor utterly ignored any public criticism.

The bigger issue here is whether Poroshenko’s personnel approach will be effective in governing the country. The president is making the assumption that the public will tolerate his expanding control over government, and keeping the status quo, in exchange for leading the war effort and preventing its escalation. It’s a risky bet. By doing so, his public support depends directly on the war’s escalation or reduction. Should the battlefront move westward, the president risks a collapse in public support, which Putin must be well aware of. We believe he would have been better off pursuing policy overhauls and broader lustration campaigns in government bodies, as well a radical program of business-oriented reforms, which would have earned the public’s confidence.