He is, despite himself, the symbol of a Ukraine that wants at all costs to show the West that it is changing. On Saturday, September 2, a Kiev court ordered the two-month detention of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. The sulphurous 60-year-old billionaire, one of the richest men in the country, had already been the subject of American sanctions “because of his involvement in significant corruption”. But it is now the Ukrainian security services (SBU) who are looking into the case of the tycoon.
This file is particularly symbolic. Because Ihor Kolomoisky is himself a former close friend of… Volodymyr Zelensky. He had notably put his vast media empire into action in order to support his presidential candidacy in 2019. He is also the owner of the television channel 1 + 1, on which the head of state had gained notoriety as a comedian. in his series “The Servant of the People”.
For Zelensky, the ambition is clear: to show that the fight against corruption, set up as a national priority, can affect everyone in the country. Including his former supporters and relatives.
Corruption reclassified as “high treason”
The fight against corruption also involves, for him and more broadly his country, major international and diplomatic issues. While Ukraine officially submitted an application for membership of the European Union on February 28, 2022, one of the criteria where Kiev is the furthest behind in joining the organization precisely concerns the fight against corruption. What cause this change of gear for the Ukrainian president, in order to be able to continue his strategic rapprochement with the West.
But recent developments are causing concern in Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky notably declared that he wanted corruption in these times of war to be equated with acts of “high treason”. Two senior national officials, quoted anonymously by The media Politico, explain that the regular Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies fear being deprived of their prerogatives, especially in the most serious corruption cases. These would then be entrusted to the Ukrainian security services (SBU), placed directly under the command of Zelensky.
A risk of conflict of interest pointed out by several organizations, which highlight the risk of seeing possible files of corruption of those close to power evaporate. Vitaly Shabunin, president of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center (Antac), a Ukrainian NGO that monitors corruption in the country, even goes so far as to say to Politico that by equating corruption with treason, Zelensky’s government would “manipulate public opinion’s desire for justice”. Accusations refuted by the chief of staff of the president, who qualifies as “conspiracy theory” the possible pressures of the top of the State on the SBU.
Endemic corruption
Ihor Kolomoisky is far from the first to be affected by a corruption scandal in Ukraine. The NGO Transparency International, which publishes an annual global index of the perception of corruption, placed Ukraine only in the 116th in the world in 2022. Ahead of Russia, of course, but behind the vast majority of other European countries.
Several recent examples have illustrated the endemic nature of this problem. The Minister of Defense, Oleksiy Reznikov, has been the target for a few weeks of accusations concerning a supply contract for the army, signed with a Turkish company which belonged to the nephew of a Ukrainian deputy. The equipment would thus have paid a high price, but would be of much lower quality than the products ordered, raising many questions. More than 200 military enrollment centers were also raided at the end of August in Ukraine to eradicate a system allowing conscripts to escape the army. Faced with this, Zelensky had already announced, a few days earlier, the dismissal of all regional officials responsible for military recruitment in Ukraine.