Scores of senior Ukrainian officials have resigned or been replaced in the biggest reshuffle of the wartime leadership since the start of the Russian invasion last year.
Among the Ukrainian officials who resigned or were dismissed yesterday are the governors of Kyiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. Kherson, Zaporizhia and neighboring Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts are currently frontline areas. Kyiv and Sumy were the scenes of major battles earlier in the war.
Among the others who left are the Deputy Minister of Defense, the Deputy Prosecutor, the Deputy Chief of Staff of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and two Deputy Ministers responsible for regional development.
Some of them are linked to accusations of corruption. Ukraine has a history of corrupt and unstable rule and is under international pressure to show it can reliably handle billions of dollars in Western aid.
Zelenski's associate, Mihailo Podoljak, announced on Twitter: "The president sees and hears society. And he directly responds to the public's key demand - justice for all."
Not only is the anti-corruption system working, but politicians are learning to work in a new way, said Vitaly Shabunin, a leading anti-corruption activist.
The purge comes two days after Deputy Infrastructure Minister Vasil Lozinski was arrested and accused of misappropriating $400.000 from a contract to buy generators, in one of the first major corruption scandals to come to light since the war began 11 months ago. Investigators also found $38.000 in cash in his office.
The Ministry of Defense announced that Deputy Minister of Defense Vyacheslav Shapovalov, responsible for the supply of troops, resigned in order to preserve confidence in the department after what it said were untrue media accusations of corruption. The decision followed a newspaper report that the ministry had overpaid for food for soldiers, which it denied.
Kirill Tymoshenko, Zelensky's deputy chief of staff, announced his resignation, also without giving a reason. He helped lead Zelenski's 2019 presidential election campaign and more recently had a role in overseeing regional politics. Local media criticized the 33-year-old for driving luxury cars during the invasion. He denied guilt and said that the vehicles were rented.
The deputy state prosecutor, Oleksiy Simonjenko, who came under fire from the local media for vacationing with his family in Marbella, Spain during the war, has been dismissed from his post.
On Monday evening, Zelenski said that officials will no longer be able to travel abroad for purposes not related to government work.
Prime Minister Denis Shmigalj said at the government meeting that Ukraine is making progress in the fight against corruption. "It is a systemic, permanent work that is very necessary for Ukraine and it is an integral part of the integration with the EU," he said.
The leading anti-corruption activist, Vitaly Shabunin, said that the dismissal of those accused of corruption is proof that the newly formed Ukrainian anti-corruption system is working, "The Guardian" reported.
"Not only does the anti-corruption system work, but politicians learn to work in a new way," said Shabunjin.
He cited the example of Lozinski, whose boss, Minister of Infrastructure Oleksiy Kubrakov, asked the government to dismiss him an hour after his arrest and search of his cabinet.
Shabunin, however, criticized Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznykov for defending and not dismissing Shapovalov, his deputy in charge of logistics, when Ukrainian media outlet ZN.UA published contracts on Saturday that showed the price of some food for soldiers was several times higher than in the supermarket.
Reznikov said the allegations were part of an information attack on the ministry and ordered Ukrainian security services to investigate who leaked the contracts.
A tacit agreement between journalists and the authorities
"The Guardian" states that corruption has been a nagging issue for journalists and activists since the beginning of the war. They worry that coming forward with evidence of corruption could damage international support for their country's war effort.
Shabunjin said that since the beginning of the war, a tacit agreement was made between activists and journalists with the authorities.
"We will not criticize the authorities as we did before the war, but the authorities in turn must react decisively and quickly to every, even small, case of corruption, such as in the case of Lozinski. They fulfilled the social contract here. But the Ministry of Defense did not."
Democratic and Republican American lawmakers yesterday praised the government of Ukraine for its quick action against corruption and said that US military and humanitarian aid to the government of Volodymyr Zelensky should be continued.
Germany will approve the sending of tanks
Yesterday, Western countries came close to a diplomatic agreement on supplying Ukraine with a significant number of battle tanks.
The German magazine "Spiegel" announced last night that Chancellor Olaf Scholz decided to send German "Leopard 2" tanks to Ukraine and approve the same for other countries, such as Poland.
It is expected that Scholz will announce the delivery of tanks to Ukraine today, Politiko reported.
Poland said it had formally sent a request to Germany to allow it to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine, leaving little room for the government in Berlin to continue delaying a long-awaited decision on re-exporting the tanks.
US officials have announced that Washington is also moving to send some of its Abrams tanks to Kiev, in a move aimed at encouraging Germany to follow suit.
"Abrams" tanks are considered less suitable for Ukraine than "Leopard" due to high fuel consumption.
For months, Ukraine has been seeking German tanks, which it says it desperately needs to give its forces the firepower and mobility to break through Russian defenses and retake occupied territory in the east and south.
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