Almost three weeks have passed since video footage implicating the brother of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff in corruption was published by Geo Leros, a lawmaker from Zelensky’s own party. Since then, more evidence has piled up that Andriy Yermak’s brother Denys was trying to sell government jobs, which the brothers deny. Alleged accomplices have confirmed the fact of the dealings and said Andriy Yermak was implicated in the scheme himself.
Yet, Zelensky has done nothing.
Andriy Yermak has been neither charged, nor fired, nor suspended. Zelensky has not even condescended to publicly comment on the scandal. At the same time, the most odious member of the Cabinet, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, has not only escaped dismissal despite being mired in corruption scandals. He is increasing his clout and funding for his ministry by appealing to emergency powers necessary for fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Allies of corrupt ex-President Viktor Yanukovych are also feeling good: his former lawyer Oleksandr Babikov is now the second-in-command at
the State Investigation Bureau, which investigates Yanukovych. He’s going after EuroMaidan Revolution activist and ex-lawmaker Tetiana Chornovol, charging her with the murder of a man who was killed by fire in the office of Yanukovych’s party during the revolution.
This is worse than a mistake: Yermak, Avakov and Babikov may cost Zelensky his entire presidency. Zelensky’s promises to punish predecessors’
corruption and graft within his own administration now ring hollow — he failed to act upon his words. If he continues on this path, Ukrainian voters who so ardently trusted him will soon hate him with as much zeal.
Zelensky has chosen both to leave corruption in his own government unpunished and to let his predecessors off the hook in exchange for preventing his wobbling majority from disintegrating in the Rada. As a result, both pro-Russian forces and ex-President Petro Poroshenko are strengthening at Zelensky’s expense.
It is laudable that Zelensky’s party has managed to pass a bill that would ban the return of Ukraine’s nationalized PrivatBank, to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky — a requirement of the International Monetary Fund.
Yet, unless Zelensky starts taking corruption at the top of his own administration seriously, this looks just like a devious ploy to mooch money rather
than a genuine reform effort.
