‘Al Jazeera’: Could Ukraine’s corruption crisis ‘lead to its military defeat’?

Cornered Zelenskyy – it’s him who brought these people to power
Photo: Reuters

A corruption scandal that involves Zelenskyy’s business partner, political allies, and a cast of presumed wrongdoers who profited from a nuclear power monopoly has roiled energy-starved Ukraine, ‘Al Jazeera’ notes.

Observers told Al Jazeera that the scandal may ruin Zelenskyy’s approval ratings, enrage Western donors and cause a political crisis that could lead to battlefield losses.

“What’s actually happening is the marauding of a state-owned company during the war, and that’s very painful for the people,” Tatiana Shevchenko of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, a group in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.

Timur Mindich, who co-owned the District 95 comic troupe that propelled Zelenskyy to stardom and a subsequent presidency, is the presumed mastermind of the corruption scheme around contracts with Energoatom, the state-run consortium that manages Ukraine’s nuclear power stations, according to two anticorruption agencies.

Mindich, 46, fled Ukraine hours before investigators knocked on the door of his luxurious apartment in central Kyiv on Monday. He has reportedly travelled to Israel.

“Catching businessman Timur Mindich was almost impossible; his flight is not a surprise,” a law enforcement source told the NV.ua broadcaster.

A day later, two independent corruption watchdogs charged Mindich and seven more people with bribery, abuse of office and illegal enrichment from kickbacks of up to 15 percent from contracts with Energoatom that amounted to about $100m.

The agencies, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), released video and audio recordings in which the group appears to use nicknames and codewords to discuss bribes and kickbacks amounting to tens of millions of dollars.

“Any anticorruption actions that yield results are very important; we need the inevitability of punishment,” Zelenskyy said on Monday. “There must be convictions.”

But anticorruption expert Shevchenko dismissed his statement.

“That’s not a response. It’s like saying, ‘Let the court decide,’” she said.

“It was Zelenskyy who brought these people to power; they used his name when appointing ‘overseers’ for the energy company,” she said.

Military defeat?

The scandal resembles a “prelude” to a long television series that will attract Ukrainians for years to come, according to Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta think tank.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy’s political opponents “will be greatly tempted to launch a large-scale attack on the president”, Fesenko told Al Jazeera.

Such an attack would have been normal in a peaceful Ukraine, but during the war, it may trigger a “domestic political crisis that can significantly weaken the state, and in the worst case, lead to military defeat”, he said.

Mindich is also reportedly connected to Firepoint, a Ukrainian company that produces deep-strike drones, aerial surveillance equipment and missiles.

Mindich denied ties to Firepoint, but the company is being investigated for corruption after winning a string of lucrative government contracts.

Germany has footed some of the bills, and the scandal may jeopardise Berlin’s future military aid.

“The lobbyists of this initiative in Germany now look thick as thieves,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University told Al Jazeera (he is in the register of individuals-foreign agents by the Russian Ministry of Justice).

He said the scandal is emblematic of wider corruption that often involves military procurement, embezzlement of foreign aid and even relations between officers who reportedly extort bribes from servicemen who want to take leave.

“Unfortunately, systemic corruption and decision-making based on it define the character of hostilities and the attitude of Ukraine’s population to their personal defence of such a region – something that leads to heavy consequences on the battlefield,” Mitrokhin said.

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