Monday Night Massacre on the Eve of the URC

The most important part of the panel I moderated at a GMF event in Berlin on June 10 on Ukrainian anti-corruption efforts was the absence of one panelist. She could not be there because Kyiv blocked her from traveling to the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC). Here’s what happened.

The leaders of Ukraine’s Ministry or Agency for Restoration would have been ideal panelists for a discussion of anti-corruption because they have built a remarkably transparent and well-governed system of restoration management. It was impossible to bribe Ukraine’s restoration leaders. When powerful figures did offer bribes, those leaders became whistleblowers, and two parliamentarians from the president’s political party were arrested as a result. They also worked closely with the G7 to keep export corridors alive, protect the energy grid, and more.

One would think that transparent governance systems and partnership with investigators and the G7 would be vital to the prosecution of the war and just as essential to attracting funding for restoration.

But it seems that is not how it was viewed by Andrii Yermak, head of the presidential office. Apparently he saw this team of transparency reformers as a major power center that he did not sufficiently control. A month ago, he wiped out the team that was building a transparent system of national restoration by suddenly firing Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov and Deputy Minister Oleksandra Azarkhina.

In response, at GMF we recommended that Ukrainian authorities repair faith in the transparency and independence of their restoration institutions by appointing a permanent minister of restoration and having them publicly commit to transparency at home and with international donors. We also urged Kyiv to pledge to enact regulations protecting the independence of the Agency for Restoration, which is embedded within the Ministry. 

We had a nice plan for Agency Deputy Head Valeria Ivanova to sit on our panel in Berlin and address technical questions about what legislative amendments could strengthen the capacity and independence of the Agency.

Unfortunately, a few days beforehand, without providing any reason for the decision, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal prohibited Ivanova, Nayyem, and the other Agency Deputy, Andriy Ivko, from leaving the country, which must be approved by the government under martial law. In response, all three offered to resign, a decision Agency Head Mustafa Nayyem attributed to “systemic obstacles that do not allow me to continue to effectively exercise my powers”. Their resignations were accepted.

I interpret this massacre on the eve of the URC as corroboration of several motives.

First, the timing: Yermak may have sidelined Kubrakov and his team—whom he reportedly viewed as too close to Ukraine’s allies—just before the URC to deny them a platform to perform well on the world stage, as they did at last year’s URC in London. How else are we to interpret Kyiv’s blocking of even those restoration leaders who remained in their jobs from presenting at the Berlin conference?

Among the many guests at the URC who are whispering about this, some feel that Kyiv does not care enough about the URC to time personnel decisions around it—as evidenced by Ukraine’s failure to appoint a permanent replacement for Kubrakov in time for the conference. But they, too, worry that this signals to Ukraine’s international partners that recovery is no longer a priority. 

Further on motives: After the ministry was targeted in May, the Agency for Restoration is now being taken over as stage two of this political power play, giving Yermak control over the funds that flow through the agency. Otherwise, why would he prohibit the reputable reformist leaders of the agency from coming to Berlin and then accept their resignations?

This makes it glaringly obvious that the agency needs formal legal independence. Such legislation should also impose a competitive process for selecting its head, including decisive involvement of foreign experts. That is how Ukraine has protected its specialized anti-corruption agencies from political capture. If they want to restore confidence that restoration money will be handled cleanly, they need to do the same for the Restoration Agency.

Beyond the institution and its personnel, the policies also matter greatly, so Ukraine and its partners should catalogue all the anti-corruption and governance safeguards put in place by this recently departed team and insist on their maintenance.

The lesson of the day is that Kyiv is not going to prioritize the integrity of the restoration bodies on their own, so the EU and US governments should insist upon it in donor conditionality.

Blocking the country’s top recovery officials from attending the biggest international conference of the year dedicated to Ukraine and the theme of recovery represents old Ukraine, where informal and opaque power centers take out reformers simply for doing their jobs with integrity and professionalism.

Fortunately, our panel—including the head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, the Mayor of Mykolaiv, and the founder of a civil society organization focused on combating corruption—was also able to offer a glimpse into the future of Ukraine, a country that is stronger than any neighboring empire or domestic kingpin.

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of GMF.