Ukraine’s Zelensky tries to limit backlash over law curbing anti-graft agencies • FRANCE 24

But first and Russian negotiators are on their way to Turkey for the first peace talks with Ukraine in more than seven weeks. This according to Russian news agencies. These talks will take place later today in Istanbul. The two sides having held two previous rounds of negotiations in Istanbul back in May and June that led to the exchange of thousands of prisoners of war and the remains of dead soldiers. It also comes as protests across Ukraine continue as President Vladimir Stalinski signs a bill into law that’s revoked the autotomy of two anti-corruption agencies. The proposals are sparking rare street demonstrations and some alarm among Ukraine’s international backers. Critics are saying the legislation consolidates power in Zilinsk’s hand and could allow the government to meddle in highprofile graft cases. Joining me now is Douglas Herbert, our international affairs commentator. Doug Zalinski ran for president on a pledge to brute out systemic corruption in his country. Those protesting this contentious law say he’s now breaking the promise. What will the new law actually do? Why is Silinski defending it? Yeah. What will the law do? Depends who you listen to. You hear Zilinsky and he’s basically saying, uh, keep calm and carry on. Nothing to see here. The law’s integrity is going to be preserved. He says, uh, you know, basically what he’s trying to do is clean up the agencies themselves. He, uh, he said there were Russian moles, Russian uh, infiltration in these agencies, uh, which he’s had to root out. Uh that is not how to put it mildly Annette how the critics including many here in the European Union see it. They see this as you correctly uh uh introduced this as meddling on the part of the government uh in the two agencies the two bodies uh that had been really really strictly independent of the government. One of the sort of the the reasons that these agencies were so credible is that they operated independently. They were not supposed to, at least on paper, be subject to any meddling by the government. And what that means is the government was not supposed to have any say in the types of investigations these agencies launch, who they choose to pursue. It’s perhaps not coincident coincidental that both of these agencies had been probing, had launched investigations into members of Vote Zilinsk’s own government. Um, so this really shows perhaps a sensitivity not just among Zalinski but the lawmakers in parliament who passed the law. The critics say they’re basically circling the wagons for themselves, protecting their own interests. At the end of the day, Annette Zalinski, what his critics would be saying is he’s talking the talk about wanting to clean up corruption, which is absolutely rampant across Ukraine. Um, but he’s not walking the walk. He wants to keep ultimate power in his hands. And that’s the real problem here. And the big fear, of course, according to the protesters, is the fact that democratic backsliding is occurring and it’s veering away from Ukraine’s path to EU membership. This is the big deal. This this is the bottom line for the protests here. Look, these protesters remember Yanukovich, who was the pro-Russian leader who ended up fleeing in the Maidon protest back in 2014. One of their deepest fears is that this democratic backsliding, the backsliding as they see it, against the war against corruption in Ukraine, um it’s a very slippery slope and that it could lead them down the road to becoming, heaven forbid, like Russia. They don’t want to end up like Russia because needless to say, Russia is a country where corruption penetrates every sector of society. And it would be unheard of to have these types of independent agencies in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to have these types of protests uh that we’re seeing in Ukraine in Vladimir Putin’s Russia protest in favor of rooting out corruption. So their fear is we don’t want to be Russia. We are on a European path and one of the things the Europeans have made amply clear throughout the accession path is that Ukraine needs to clean up its corruption act if it wants to conform to the standards that would make it a European member. Now there are people who worry that this is playing into Russia’s hands, Russia’s narrative about the corruption across Ukraine, about how it’s a debouched state, that it’s destined to fail, that this is all playing into Vladimir Putin’s hands. But the critics also say just because uh it plays into Russia’s narrative doesn’t mean we do not have an obligation to meet our democrat our democratic obligations and to live up to those standards that the EU has been holding in us as says Europe. Europe says the same thing. We have to criticize Ukraine. We cannot just only say great things about Ukraine when it does wrong. We have to speak out. Doug, we’re gonna have to leave it there. Thank you.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky promised a quick new plan on July 23 to fight corruption, after a law curbing the independence of anti-graft agencies triggered the first street protests of the war and rare rebukes from European allies. France 24’s Douglas Herbert tells us more.
#Ukraine #Zelensky #protests

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38 comments

  8. They western people thinks Russia is their enemy. No, your enemies are within your own country. Russia is an amazing country..

  10. Zelensky bears criminal responsibility for the destruction of Ukraine and the death of its own people. He’s sent tens of thousands of young Ukrainians—who should have been the future of the country—straight into the meat grinder. He’s pulled off the unbelievable: turning his own nation into a pawn for Western interests.
    Europe and the U.S. don’t care about Ukraine—they care about weakening Russia. And to do that, they’re using the Ukrainian people as the weapon of choice. A disposable one. When they’re done with Ukraine, they’ll move on. The cost? Ukrainian lives. And Zelensky handed them over willingly.

  11. Who provoked this war.
    In February 1990, Baker told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move "an inch to the east" if the Soviet Union accepted the reunification of Germany under NATO.
    This declaration was made verbally during diplomatic talks and was never formalized into a treaty.
    Other Western leaders, such as German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand (France), and John Major (United Kingdom), also made similar statements to Gorbachev, indicating that NATO would not expand eastward.
    This promise was broken by the West, which expanded NATO to countries bordering Russia:
    1999 Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic
    2004 Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
    2009 Albania, Croatia
    2017 Montenegro
    2020 North Macedonia
    2023 Finland
    2024 Sweden
    For decades, Russia has repeatedly warned NATO: do not move your military infrastructure closer to our borders. And these warnings have been ignored. For years, Russia tried to negotiate with Ukraine after the overthrow of its elected government, simply asking for respect and an end to the killing of Russian-speaking civilians in eastern Ukraine and Donbass. Again, no one listened. Now, here we are — locked in a proxy war, with NATO funneling weapons and money to keep the fight going, hoping for a “strategic defeat” of Russia while Ukraine bleeds. The so-called Ukrainian leadership sends men to die without hesitation, dragging the entire nation towards collapse. And NATO? Playing with fire, pushing the world closer to World War III. Perhaps this was the beginning of the globalist elites who never really cared about Ukraine, only about using it as a tool. It is tragic how ordinary Ukrainians have become mere cannon fodder for the ambitions of global powers.

  19. 😂😂😂 Western bots are NOT ecstatic with today's headline!! Y'all can cry harder! It's only a matter of time, before Zelensky is finally kicked out by patriotic Ukrainians and replaced by one of their own who serves Ukraine's interests right. ❤🇺🇦😁

  21. Ukraine on fast track to cancel Western aid. Not many western taxpayers want to subsidize corruption in Ukraine

  22. As ukrainian, I can say that Ukraine is exhausted in this war. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed or injured, millions refugees left the country (mostly women, children or elderly, men 18-60 are not allowed). For about last two years Ukraine have problems with recruiting new soldiers, most new soldiers are forced to join the army, a lot of men are literally sitting in their homes and afraid to go outside bc they could be kidnapped on streets to join army. But these problems are ignoring by Zelensky, government and part of society in order not to look weak in war against russia. Until March this year, Zelensky demanded to fight till the end – to liberate all lands. Only now, mainly after Trump's pressure, he agreed to stop war on the current frontline.

    That's a reality. It's not very safe to speak about these problems in Ukraine now. Corruption is the most morally accepted problem to speak about it so that's why it is the topic of this first widespread protests since the russian invasion. It's a shame but corruption really exists, even during wartime. Honestly me and many others would like the EU and US to put more pressure on Zelensky and ukrainian government to stop this war and limit money aid. Arms and humanitarian aid are the only useful things. Pressure on russia should be done as well, of course.

  30. Zelensky also ran also on peace with Russia. But he has no independence, Boris Johnson and Biden told him to abandon Istanbul agreement and fight on.

  31. I love the way he makes the Protests all RUSSIA its against Russia not against Zelensky, so funny how people refuse to think when they want to falsify the truth……

  38. The decision he made was made for a reason. Zelensky loves the land of Ukraine and the Ukrainians. He would NOT harm the country or the people. He has shown who he is! A man dedicated to the people of Ukraine. May the God of all creation shower blessings on Zelensky, his family, and all Ukrainians in the name of Yeshua.

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