{"id":274431,"date":"2025-07-19T10:02:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T10:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/274431\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T10:02:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T10:02:16","slug":"ukrainian-government-raids-anti-corruption-campaigner-raising-alarm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/274431\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian government raids anti-corruption campaigner, raising alarm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine risks backsliding on its endemic corruption problem<\/a> \u2014 and even creeping toward authoritarianism \u2014 activists warn, following police raids against a high-profile anti-corruption campaigner<\/a> and opposition figures.<\/p>\n

On July 11, armed police raided the home of Vitaliy Shabunin, the co-founder of Ukraine\u2019s Anti-Corruption<\/a> Action Center. He has accused President Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> of \u201ctaking the first, but confident steps toward corrupt authoritarianism,\u201d including backing laws offering amnesty to those accused of corruption in the defense industry<\/a>, and passing over an independently selected candidate for a key anti-graft role.<\/p>\n

The move has perturbed even some of Zelenskyy\u2019s supporters \u2014 people who are simultaneously worried about the heavy-handed and potentially spurious crackdown on dissent, and that such criticisms against the Ukrainian leader might be used in bad faith by opponents in Moscow or Washington<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the red line which President Zelensky has crossed \u2014 and the red line is in a very wrong direction in terms of the development of Ukraine,\u201d said Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, the Kyiv-based watchdog that Shabunin co-founded. She said the State Bureau of Investigations did not have the necessary court documents for the search.<\/p>\n

\"RussiaUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Vadym Sarakhan \/ AP<\/p>\n

Shabunin has been charged with evading military service and fraud, with prosecutors alleging that while on secondment from the front lines to continue his activism back in Kyiv, he conducted activities unrelated to his military service. His defense team and supporters say the secondment was all aboveboard and ordered by his superiors, and that the allegations are trumped up and political.<\/p>\n

The case has caused grave alarm for many inside Ukraine and abroad, with even some of those who praise Zelenskyy for making progress on corruption flagging it as cause for concern that he may be engaging in some of the same questionable practices they\u2019d hoped he was rooting out.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy pledged to reduce corruption when he was elected in 2019<\/a>, and many expert observers say he has been effective at doing so, but the tide of criticism around Shabunin\u2019s arrest comes when the president is under intense pressure to fight off Russia and keep alive support from the United States and the West that has been at risk of faltering.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just Shabunin\u2019s own organization that\u2019s concerned. A group of 59 nongovernmental and civil society organizations, both inside Ukraine and abroad, have signed an open letter to Zelenskyy saying the arrest \u201cbears signs of political motivation, abuse of rights\u201d and either \u201cgross incompetence\u201d or \u201ca deliberate attack to pressure\u201d Shabunin.<\/p>\n

\"VitaliyVitaliy Shabunin, left, during a police raid on a military residence in Kharkiv on Friday.Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation<\/p>\n

NBC News has contacted Zelenskyy\u2019s office and the State Bureau of Investigations for comment but has not received a response.<\/p>\n

The president has been a longtime vocal advocate on the issue of fighting corruption, particularly when it comes to suggestions from the U.S. and elsewhere that the billions of dollars in military aid his country is receiving might be being misappropriated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere we saw risks that something could be happening with weapons, we cracked down hard,\u201d he told the \u201cLex Fridman Podcast\u201d in January.<\/p>\n

Last year Shabunin himself dismissed the idea that foreign arms could be embezzled, telling the BBC<\/a> that \u201call weapons supplied by Western allies end up in the hands of Ukrainian troops who use them effectively. It is impossible to steal Western weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shabunin appeared in court Tuesday and was released on \u201crecognizance\u201d \u2014 essentially released without having to post bail \u2014 until the next hearing Aug. 20.<\/p>\n

The German Marshall Fund, a Washington think tank and one of the international signatories of the letter to Zelenskyy, said Ukraine had made \u201cmonumental strides\u201d on corruption in the past 11 years.<\/p>\n

\"UkrainianVitaliy Shabunin arrives at court in Kyiv on Tuesday.Danylo Antoniuk \/ Ukrinform via Reuters<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, \u201cit\u2019s always concerning when a government targets its vocal critics with flimsy charges in politically motivated investigations,\u201d said Josh Rudolph, head of the fund\u2019s malign finance and corruption team. \u201cAlthough this is not a sign of corruption per se, it displays an alarming disregard for the fundamental values of freedom and the rule of law at a time when the international community has been rallying around Ukraine because it is defending those very values from Russia\u2019s brutal assault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shabunin is not the only recent arrest to cause alarm. The opposition UDAR party, headed by former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, says that a raid in April on the home of Kyiv City Council deputy Dmytro Bilotserkivets \u2014 again, they said, without the necessary documents \u2014 was a clear attempt to put pressure on political dissent.<\/p>\n

Corruption in Ukraine is a fraught and delicate topic, ripe for weaponization often in bad faith.<\/p>\n

Russia uses it as an example to support its otherwise untrue criticisms \u2014 such as Ukraine being run by neo-Nazis<\/a> \u2014 while American and European politicians hold up such examples to bolster their pre-existing arguments about whether to support Kyiv\u2019s defense against Moscow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue of corruption in Ukraine has long been highly politicized,\u201d said Mariya Omelicheva, a professor at the Pentagon-funded National War College in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian \u201ccorruption is almost always co-opted \u2014 either by Ukraine\u2019s supporters or, more problematically, by its adversaries,\u201d she added. \u201cThis is particularly sensitive in the current U.S. political climate, where both parties \u2014 Democrats and Republicans \u2014 have used Ukrainian corruption narratives for domestic political purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also a feeling among some Ukrainians that President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d focus has allowed officials abroad to act with greater impunity knowing Washington\u2019s hitherto exacting gaze is currently less troubled by world affairs.<\/p>\n

\"RussianA Russian missile strike hit the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk on July 12.Vincenzo Circosta \/ Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cOur international partners, particularly the United States, don\u2019t care anymore about good governance and anti-corruption and reforms,\u201d Kaleniuk said. Washington \u201cfor the last 12 years had a powerful impact on how Ukraine develops, and the U.S. was usually tough on good governance, anti-corruption reforms and developments critical for democracy,\u201d she said. \u201cBut now America doesn\u2019t care about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s true Trump historically spoke warmly of Russian President Vladimir Putin<\/a> and appeared to accept many of his war demands, in recent weeks he has been increasingly hostile to the Kremlin and signaled a renewed support for Ukraine<\/a>, pledging Patriot missiles for Kyiv and tariffs on Moscow.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also true that Ukraine \u2014 and Zelenskyy \u2014 have achieved some progress in the corruption fight in recent years. Transparency International, the best known international group that tracks this topic, says Ukraine has steadily improved in its annual \u201cCorruption Perceptions\u201d index \u2014 although it still ranks 105 of 180 countries worldwide.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, domestically there are plenty of Ukrainians alarmed at what they see is a negative direction of travel when it comes to corruption in their country. Though the immediate fight is against Russia, the ultimate battle is for their values of liberty and democracy, supporters say, without which the battlefield struggle becomes pointless.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fighting for freedoms and for dignity,\u201d Kaleniuk said. If those are lost, \u201conly Russia will applaud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexander Smith and Freddie Clayton reported from London. Erin McLaughlin from Washington, D.C., and Anastasiia Parafeniuk and Daryna Mayer from Kyiv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine risks backsliding on its endemic corruption problem \u2014 and even creeping toward authoritarianism \u2014 activists warn, following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-274431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114879329020157824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}