Shokin appoints head of specialized anti-corruption prosecution

Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin selected on Nov. 30 31-year-old Nazar Kholodnytskiy as the head of Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. Kholodnytskiy was one of two candidates submitted to Shokin by the nominating commission. He has spent ten years serving in the Prosecutor General’s Office, with his most recent position being first deputy prosecutor general of Crimea as of December 2014, following the Russian occupation. He is credited with arresting property worth more than UAH 1 bln that belonged to those who supported the annexation.

The other candidate, 31-year-old Maksym Hryshchuk, last served in the Lviv prosecutor general’s office and is a veteran of the anti-terrorist operation. He will be appointed to a high-ranking position in the anti-corruption office, reported the Ukrainian News service, citing an anonymous source in the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Zenon Zawada: Anti-corruption activists declared the nominations of Kholodnytskiy and Hryshchuk a victory against President Petro Poroshenko, who worked with Shokin to resist candidates that they viewed as too independent and active. As a result, they successfully torpedoed the candidacy of Vitaliy Kasko, whose anti-corruption dedication even earned the endorsement of the U.S. government. Poroshenko also succeeded in resisting EU demands to replace his appointments to the nominating committee, who went to extremes to undermine Kasko’s candidacy. It looks like the president doesn’t appreciate the spirit and the motive behind anti-corruption efforts, which he perceives as a threat. Given his intense resistance, we expect many more conflicts and scandals involving the specialized anti-corruption prosecutor general.

This entire episode reveals that when Poroshenko really is concerned about a political matter, he is willing to resist even the demands of the EU and U.S. governments. The vigilance that he and Sohkin demonstrated confirms that all the unpopular moves being imposed on Ukraine by both the West and Russia have Poroshenko’s tacit approval, so long as they don’t conflict with his own immediate, personal interests. This approach to politics doesn’t offer any long-term prospects for Ukraine’s future and will lead to serious conflicts next year, we beleive. We think it’s at least 50/50 likely that a change in the country’s top leadership will occur in the next several months, with demands already being made for the resignations of the prime minister and prosecutor general.