Combating corruption

Indeed, Kolomoisky invested in Cyprus, specifically by establishing there a PrivatBank branch, which was heavily used for laundering funds from Ukraine. To avoid collapse of the financial sector, the government of Ukraine nationalized PrivatBank, the largest bank of the country, in December.  This cost Ukrainian taxpayers at least $5 billion — more than 10 percent of the entire annual state budget, equivalent to what the nation spends each year now on defense and security. The bank went insolvent merely because its management was regularly issuing huge loans to its beneficiaries, who would never return them. Prior to nationalization, the National Bank of Ukraine gave to PrivatBank about Hr 30 billion in refinancing loans, which bank’s management was obliged to use for restructuring debts of the bank. However, just in 2014, Kolomoisky, immediately after receiving the NBU money, issued multimillion-dollar loans to a set of affiliated companies, which in turn transferred ...

The Kremlin’s political-military campaign in Eastern Ukraine threatens both Kyiv and the rest of Europe three years after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. The Kremlin – in violation of its obligations under the ‘Minsk II’ ceasefire agreements – has fueled the conflict in pursuit of its grand strategic objective to assert dominance over the former Soviet Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown no desire to withdraw his forces despite his failure to develop proxy forces capable of independently extending his campaign of subversion across Ukraine. Putin will continue to extend and exploit the war to destabilize Ukraine and prevent its further integration with the West until faced with costs that change his calculus. This paper demonstrates that Russia’s proxy forces operating in Eastern Ukraine - the Donetsk (DNR) and Luhansk (LNR) Peoples’ Republics - continue to pose a threat to the security of Ukraine and Europe. These proxies only retain the capability to fight th...

“AUTHORITIES confirm they’ve made progress in an investigation into the finances of anti-corruption activist Vitaliy Shabunin,” drones the anchor of an American television network, News24, in a clip recently shared across Ukrainian social media. There is only one problem: there is no News24, and the anchor is not a journalist but an actor hired through a freelance site, Fiverr.com. “I assumed the video was a prank his friends were playing on him,” says the actor, Michael-John Wolfe. The “fake news” bulletin was an illustration of the increasingly hostile environment facing anti-corruption activists, journalists and reformist officials in Ukraine. “I cannot escape the feeling that we’re living through a counter-revolution,” writes Yaroslav Hrytsak, a historian at Ukrainian Catholic University. This is partly a backlash against reforms, particularly the new National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). By allowing such measures, the political elite “opened Pandora’s box,” says Yaroslav Yurc...

The funds allegedly were stolen from the state in 2011-2014 and then placed to the offshore accounts of companies registered at Cyprus and BVI, which were controlled by the father of Mr. Klymenko. Afterwards, the funds were returned to Ukraine as “investments” to the UNISON group of companies, allegedly the key corporate structure of Klymenko dirty business empire. Within the course of criminal investigation PGO seized in June-July 2017 dozens of elite apartments in Kyiv, office buildings, houses, land plots and a thousand of railcars.  Prosecutor Matios also publicly urged Liechtenstein to cooperate with Ukrainian PGO in order to seize and recover assets of Klymenko placed abroad. Back on May 2017 PGO issued a notification of suspicion to Mr. Klymenko for participation in organized criminal group and abuse of power. AntAC is closely following the course of the investigation and, specifically, the situation with asset recovery perspectives of this case.  PGO claim...

The government that came to power in Ukraine after the 2014 revolution pledged to end corruption, and the EU also made progress on that front with it being a key condition for Ukrainians gaining visa-free travel in June. It has taken a long time, but the country’s ‘Anti-Corruption Bureau’ is now fully operational. It has just carried out an ambitious sting operation that caught at least one MP demanding huge bribes. But things did not turn out exactly as the Bureau had hoped… Watch our video. FRANCE 24's Ukraine correspondent Gulliver Cragg brings us this report, featuring hidden camera footage. Please note the order of this footage is not in chronological order for clarity purposes. You can find more details, complete with video extracts in chronological order, here. And if you can understand Russian and Ukrainian, there’s an even more extensive version here. A programme prepared by Patrick Lovett and Florence Viala.

Ukraine is losing its opportunity to demonstrate to the world the efficiency of its anti-corruption program. On the contrary, impunity of the top corrupt officials of the previous regime and political pressure on the newly developed anti-corruption institutions is a great concern for the international community. These conclusions were announced by the Chair of Transparency International, Jose Ugaz. 2016 was a year of fake promises and poor results in the sphere of anti-corruption, according to  Yaroslav Yurchyshyn , Executive Director in Transparency International Ukraine. This happened because a year before, during the meeting of the Chair of Transparency International Jose Ugaz and the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, and the newly appointed Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko, a lot of promises were made, including recovery of assets of the former president Yanukovych and his counterparts, facilitation of the independent performance of the anti-corruption institutions, ...

Such possibility was in the Draft law on Anti-corruption Bureau but after the final text of the Law went through the Presidential Administration the mention of President has gone. And that was the only compromise that allowed to gather the majority of votes for the law in the Parliament The State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) could possibly be such authority but we are all witnessing how much effort the Government makes to stop its creation.  And it is – an illusory opportunity, because supervision – control over the investigation of the Bureau is also under the Prosecutor General’s Office. Now you understand why the PGO is so fundamental authority for the political stability of the presidential vertical. Before the creation of SBI such financial crimes are controlled should be investigated by the Prosecutor General’s Office controlled by the President. This is called a vicious circle of corruption, controlled personally by the President Poroshenko. So, while Poroshenko ...