Zelensky cleans house with anti-graft purge
KYIV: Ukraine has dismissed a dozen top officials in its biggest political shakeup following the country’s first major corruption scandal linked to the Russian invasion.
Ukraine has long suffered endemic corruption, but Moscow’s nearly year-long fullscale war has overshadowed efforts to stamp out graft.
Western allies have allocated billions of dollars in financial and military aid to Kyiv to counter Russian troops, often preconditioning the support on anti-corruption reforms.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Tuesday that the clean-up was necessary and that additional measures would be taken.
“It is fair, it is needed for our defence, and it helps our rapprochement with European institutions,” he said.
Presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said Mr Zelensky had focused on “key priorities of the state” in dismissing the officials, who include governors of regions that have suffered from heavy fighting and deputy cabinet ministers.
“During the war, everyone should understand their responsibility,” he tweeted.
The shakeup came after a Ukrainian deputy minister of development of communities and territories, Vasyl Lozynskiy, was sacked at the weekend following his arrest on suspicion of embezzlement.
Photographs released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau showed stashes of cash seized at Lozynskiy’s office. The 36-year-old was accused of receiving a $400,000 bribe to “facilitate” the purchase of generators at inflated prices, as Ukraine struggles with electricity shortages following Russian strikes on its energy grid.
On Tuesday, key presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who has worked with Mr Zelensky since his 2019 election, announced his resignation.
The 33-year-old posted a picture of himself holding a handwritten resignation letter, thanking the President for the “opportunity to do good deeds every day”.
Mr Tymoshenko was implicated in several scandals, including over the alleged personal use last October of an SUV donated to Ukraine for humanitarian purposes.
He was replaced by Oleksii Kuleba, the former head of Kyiv military administration.
The US welcomed the dismissals and said none of the billions of dollars in US war assistance was known to have been involved.
“The Ukrainian people have been very clear about their desire for good governance and transparency,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.