Last night, Ukraine’s acting president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced newly-drafted legislation to supersede the legislation he had pushed through the Verkhovna Rada only two days earlier. On July 21, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) conducted massive raids against NABU and SAPO, the foreign-funded agencies believed to be investigating corruption in the circles of Zelenskyy and Andrii Yermak, the head of the Office of the President. On July 22, legislation was rammed through that put those agencies under the supervision of Zelenskyy’s Prosecutor General. Crowds of Ukrainians took to the streets to protest.
On July 22 and 23, EU officials objected to the destruction of the independence of both agencies. After Ursula von der Leyen spoke with Zelenskyy directly, conveying the EU’s serious concerns, a European Commission spokesperson explained, “I cannot give you the exact details of what, when, how and what time [was discussed]. What matters is the message that was indeed passed, a message where we expressed our concern, our worries, about the steps that had been taken in the meantime.” Then satisfaction was expressed regarding the first step: “Indeed, we understand that the Ukrainian authorities have taken a new approach, [to] propose a new action plan or law.”
Today, Ukrainska Pravda began their coverage of Zelenskyy’s address with the headline: “Zelenskyy Amid Third Day of Protests....” Zelenskyy announced that his superseding bill fulfills “my promise—for justice, for law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies. Full-fledged guarantees of the independence of anti-corruption agencies. Real opportunities to verify, so that any Russian interference is kept out.” Now, NABU and SAPO “must undergo lie detector tests. And these must be regular checks.” With this lie-detector requirement, Zelenskyy maintains the fiction that the reason for the SBU crackdown on NABU and SAPO was that they were packed with “Russian agents.”
Of some note, it is his SBU which is to conduct the tests on anyone who they say has access to state secrets—so those in NABU and SAPO who want to investigate the Zelenskyy-Yermak networks for corruption will have to think twice. Many things remain unclear as to who gets to wield the “anti-corruption” mechanisms in Ukraine, but the Zelenskyy-Yermak team this week clearly felt a net closing upon them and Brussels apparently is fighting to retain some control over who gets dumped over corruption issues. Yet the image as to how far Zelenskyy is willing to go to usurp power won’t be one easy to erase.
Otherwise, Zelenskyy then tried to assure Ukrainians that his EU partners were behind him, stating: “The text of the bill was discussed with partners.… There were many proposals from our partners to involve European experts—from the U.K., Germany, and the EU. I instructed our government officials to present the bill to all our partners and to engage all necessary expert capabilities.”
