#324: Ukraine Is Fighting Corruption: Our Support Is More Important Than Ever

If you follow news around Ukraine, you’ll be aware that there have been major accusations about corruption cases recently in Ukraine, revealed actually by Ukrainian institutions. What does this mean?

It is a long-standing trope within Russian-led media that Ukraine is simply too corrupt and that because of the corruption in Ukraine, the West should cease its support and support Russia instead.

Well, this is absurd on the level of drawing that conclusion. Just because there’s corruption in Ukraine doesn’t mean Russia should be supported. So that can be dismissed. Russia is even more corrupt. We know that, and it’s one of the standing problems there within Russian—current Russian culture.

There has, of course, been a long history of fighting corruption in Ukraine. But first, let us think about what corruption actually means.

Corruption is, in some ways, a culture of informality, of networking, of profiteering, of getting kickbacks, of establishing an alternative to the legal system in place. It is systemic in dictatorships in some ways, but also in post-dictatorship countries. Democracies have their own way of corruption. We typically don’t call it that. We typically call it some other things.

Typically, though, the aim within a democracy is transparency, and corruption is the antithesis to that, which is why the European Union, for every member candidate and member state, has high thresholds of what level of corruption they’re willing to tolerate or not.

A key question could be: Is your country built on formal or informal relations? Does the rule of law based on democratic consent matter more than the individual relationships between people? Are civil servants interested in the public good or their own advancement? Also, we could ask: Is the system you’re living in so oppressive that informal structures emerge to undercut the formal oppression?

Zelensky himself has spoken out about corruption, and Ukraine is committed to EU and eventual NATO membership. For that, rooting out corruption is a necessity, especially now if what happened affects Ukrainian defense and energy systems.

Now, though, let’s remember Zelensky himself created the television show “Servant of the People” (Sluga Narodu). It’s how he became a superstar within the Slavic world. The series is actually in Russian with a little bit of Ukrainian, because Zelensky himself is a native Russian speaker. Zelensky is famous within Russia for that show.

And when you watch it, it shows that the character he plays, Goloborodko, is actually voted in as president of Ukraine because of accusations that he makes against every politician in Ukraine being corrupt. The core of the show is to show how Ukraine is mired in corruption, in dysfunction, in the old ways, and that Zelensky’s character there is actually trying to fix the problem.

And at a certain point in episode 15 of season 1, after witnessing how him just being president leads his family to want to be more corrupt, expecting kickbacks, he’s trying to get roads fixed in Kyiv and everybody holds their hand up, and so that money is just lost throughout the way. Now then there’s a press conference, and someone asks him: How does a Ukrainian become a yokel?

So now I’m going to talk about—cite some excerpts from that speech:

“Any decent Ukrainian, once elected, becomes a shrewd, weasel-like, thievish yokel. You think he became a shrewd, weasel-like, thievish yokel, or was he a yokel to begin with? Are people born yokels? I don’t think Ukrainians are born yokels. I think we are all born Ukrainians.

“The question is then: How do these 3 kg [of a baby] turn into a 100-kilogram yokel? How does this happen? I’ll explain. We are to blame. People like you, like me. All of us, we are to blame.

“It starts at birth with a bribe at the maternity ward. It’s a must. Pay the doctor. No bribe? Go back inside. Then we bring the baby home, where it’s still a Ukrainian. Once he starts to think, it becomes a yokel. He first sees his dad. Dad is sitting watching TV, of course, and says, ‘These idiots are to blame for everything. These bastards, these damn politicians.’ While saying this, he counts the 200 hryvnias he got at a rent rally yesterday protesting against these idiots and putrid lawmakers. If dad doesn’t, someone will in his place. Why should someone else take the stolen money? Why not me? Dad reasons. The baby takes mental note. So our Ukrainian gradually becomes like his dad. He turns into a yokel gradually.”

Then Goloborodko, played by Zelensky, describes how then the kid gets enrolled in private schools, how teachers are bribed to get good grades and onto university, always with bribes and corruption, and the city and the state deteriorate around them. Finally, this young man, successful because of the corruption of his parents, of teachers, of professors, of politicians, of ordinary people, he succeeds. Now I quote the conclusion of the speech:

“At 20 or 25, he becomes a lawmaker, and our Ukrainian completely transforms into a full-fledged yokel. He will be fine. However, his children will study in Switzerland, not here, away from the yokels. He’ll sue the Dnieper River. He’s shit there already. He’ll go to the Maldives to avoid the yokels. He’ll buy a flat in London to avoid the yokels. Removed from all this. ‘This isn’t mine.’ Herein lies our enigmatic yokel soul. Are there any more questions, my fellow Ukrainians?”

So I will put a link to the speech in the description. It is worthwhile to watch it in full and to watch the series. It is Zelensky’s original political program. He even describes how his character fails in many ways because everybody around him is incompetent.

So as a very sad and ironic mirror to the show, there are people in Ukraine blaming him of not having succeeded yet. Some may blame him because of some of the successes, because they can’t benefit anymore. Of course, it’s true that he hasn’t completely succeeded.

However—and I don’t try to minimize corruption here—but Ukraine has been defending against Russian aggression since 2014. Eleven years of war and occupation and horror and ethnic cleansing. At the same time, the country is still doing what they can to reform all the institutions to fit within the democratic European Union framework.

I don’t know how they can do this. They’re doing it. Sometimes there are mistakes on the way. We know that. But because of that, Ukraine needs our support to survive, and those fighting corruption in Ukraine need it as well.

How will Ukraine succeed on both counts? Help Ukraine win against Russia. Give Ukraine a clear perspective towards the EU and eventually NATO. Both organizations are meant to minimize this type of corruption. Then help Russia to survive Putinism and become democratic as well. That’s the only choice. This is the only way.

Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!