Jamie Dettmer
As a democratic state, Ukraine is under assault from two sources. Its first and most obvious adversary is Moscow, which has long wanted to return the country to the days of being a Kremlin plaything, a mere Russian satellite.But arguably there’s another insidious and corrosive adversary from within — the country’s own semi-autocratic leadership.
This is what opposition lawmakers and civil society activists have been arguing for months, as Ukraine’s presidential administration has been grabbing more power, weakening other governing and regional institutions — including the country’s parliament — while also intimidating critics in a bid to silence them with hue-and-cry campaigns or by labeling them as Russian stooges.
They say the extent of this democratic backsliding became clearer this week after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gutted Ukraine’s two key anti-corruption agencies, which had been zeroing in on top government officials. The move prompted the first country-wide street protests since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.
In Kyiv, hundreds of protesters gathered near the presidential complex while crowds of veterans, active-duty soldiers and civilians gathered in dozens of other towns, including Lviv and the frontline cities of Odesa and Dnipro. Despite the rallies, Zelenskyy approved the new law, which will hand substantial authority over the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) to the politically appointed prosecutor general.U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime frenemy of Zelenskyy, might have been an unwitting ally as the Ukrainian leader targeted his country’s corruption busters.
“He knows the U.S. won’t pressure him,” said a former Zelenskyy minister, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. The decision to gut the agencies resulted from “the realization that NABU would continue [getting] closer to others in the governing inner circle,” they said, citing a NABU land-grab probe into former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov as something that would have terrified insiders.“This is the logical culmination of tightening the screws at home. The new narrative is simple: You’re either with Zelenskyy or you’re a Russian agent,” they added.
No comments:
Post a Comment