The 13th annual YES event is sponsored by billionaire Victor Pinchuk, the father-in-law of ex-President Leonid Kuchma. In a society with rule of law, Kuchma would have stood trial long ago for conspiring to order the murder of Gongadze, along with his top subordinates, including ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, who committed “suicide” with two gunshot wounds to the head on the day in 2005 when he was scheduled to testify in the case. Kuchma has always denied the charges, but evidence of his involvement has always been strong.

Only through sustained pressure and the persistence of many people, including Gongadze’s widow, Voice of America journalist Myroslava Gongadze, and her attorney, Valentyna Telychenko, have convictions been obtained. Serving prison sentences are Gen. Oleksiy Pukach and three police officers. The four men carried out the gruesome crime of kidnapping, beating, beheading and burying Gongadze, the founder of Ukrainska Pravda news website.

The farce of an investigation that followed is not ancient news – it reveals that there is still no rule of law today under President Petro Poroshenko, who has obstructed justice and meaningful law enforcement changes while keeping a facade of “reform.” His approval rating of 11 percent shows he’s not fooling many people. So does the scorecard of no criminal convictions for murder and major corruption.

The nation keeps making halting progress, nonetheless. Much of that is due to Western conditions and Ukrainian civil society, not Poroshenko.

Ukraine raised the price of natural gas, reducing the schemes that made oligarchs such as fugitive Dmytro Firtash wealthy and powerful. But Ukraine has failed to follow the lead of the United States, which accuses Firtash of bribery, in prosecuting him – despite evidence of crimes. The reason? Firtash still has clout. He summoned Poroshenko and Vitali Klitschko to Vienna, where he backed one for president and the other for Kyiv mayor in 2014. Although denied, a “Vienna Agreement” appears to remain in force in which Firtash keeps all his industrial and media assets while facing no criminal investigations in Ukraine, despite owing the National Bank of Ukraine $500 million and costing Ukrainian taxpayers $150 million for his failed Nadra Bank.

Today we pause to remember Gongadze, even as more in the nation forget him. Kuchma, who ran the nation from 1994 to 2004 like a mafia boss, will strut in undeserved freedom at his son-in-law’s conference, trying to perpetuate the fiction that he is a “statesman” rather than an unindicted criminal who almost drove the nation to ruin. We will remember those who continue to obstruct justice, starting with the man at the top of a political pyramid where corruption remains rife.