The resignation of Andrii Yermak, head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, was a seismic event for the leadership in Kyiv. It marked the latest twist in a struggle against corruption that has been a defining political and institutional battle since Ukraine broke free from Moscow’s control.
From the chaotic 1990s, when graft was a survival mechanism for political and business elites, to today’s long and uneven transition toward European governance standards, the country has continued to confront the same entrenched patterns of impunity.
On all international indices, Ukraine has become much less corrupt than its former colonial masters in the Kremlin, but the endemic culture of kickbacks and bribes that characterized the Soviet Union and its aftermath has left a long hangover.
On Transparency International’s, for example, Ukraine is the 105th cleanest country of the 180 assessed, while Russia is placed at 154th. In 2014, when Russia began its war against Ukraine, Russia was marginally cleaner, ranking at 136th, with Ukraine at 142nd.
But cleaner is not necessarily clean. Searches by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) at the homes of Yermak, Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko, and businessman and long-time presidential associate Timur Mindich, once again placed the issue at the center of debate. They also raised uncomfortable questions about political protection networks and whether anti-corruption bodies are allowed to act freely.
While several individuals were detained or formally notified of the allegations against them, Yermak, Halushchenko, and Mindich were not among them. This may, of course, be because they have broken no law, but it has reinforced a widespread belief that Ukraine’s anti-corruption drive remains selective, politically constrained, and often only begins once a scandal becomes impossible to ignore.
Ukraine adopted its first law “on combating corruption” in 1995, shortly after joining the Council of Europe, yet these early frameworks were largely symbolic. The real fight only began after the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, when Ukraine signed a European Union Association Agreement (in the teeth of fierce Russian opposition that ultimately led to the first invasion) and committed to the legal and institutional reforms required by the bloc.
One of the most important conditions set by both the EU and the US was the establishment of independent anti-corruption bodies insulated from political interference.
Ukraine created an institutional system that included NABU, SAPO, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), and the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA). Electronic asset declarations became mandatory for all public officials, and verification mechanisms were introduced to identify illicit enrichment and discrepancies in reported assets.
Yet the anti-corruption trajectory since 2014 has not been straightforward. For every major breakthrough, there has been an equally discouraging setback. Before the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) began operating in 2019, for example, ordinary courts delayed NABU-investigated cases for years, often refusing even to schedule hearings.
In early 2019, the Constitutional Court struck down the criminal article on illicit enrichment, nullifying more than 60 ongoing investigations and granting a de facto amnesty to officials with questionable assets. The following year, the same court declared the liability for false asset declarations unconstitutional, provoking a backlash from civil society groups and international partners.
Law-enforcement agencies have also obstructed NABU; for many officials the likelihood of avoiding detection remains high, perpetuating the image of corruption as a low-risk, high-profit activity.
Even when cases do reach the courts, impunity remains common. A tiny proportion of those convicted of corruption serve prison sentences, according to OpenDataBot, which found 98% of the 6,877 offenders convicted since Russia’s full-scale invasion received fines. In 2024, just 27 offenders were jailed.
This perception of impunity is rooted in deep structural features of Ukrainian governance, some of which are unchanged since the early post-Soviet period.
One of the central problems is the absence of transparent and regulated lobbying. Because formal lobbying mechanisms do not exist, influence over policy is often exercised informally — through personal networks, intermediaries, or political sponsorship.
Instead of structures for open advocacy typical in the EU and US systems, Ukraine’s model has often relied on non-transparent channels such as “trusted fixers,” informal advisers, or business groups embedded inside ministries. And these methods thrive precisely because they are invisible.
Investigative journalists have repeatedly uncovered cases of proposed legislation being written by business associations with direct material interests, for example, in the tobacco market or construction. Without a legal framework regulating who may lobby, how, and on what terms, such hidden influence remains unaccountable.
This intersects with the persistent problem of patronage and nepotism — a governance model that emerged in the 1990s and has never been properly dismantled. Political appointments often prioritize personal loyalty over professional competence, particularly in regional administrations and state-owned enterprises.
Operation Midas, the major probe by NABU and SAPO which led to Halushchenko’s ouster, uncovered a group of politically connected intermediaries at Energoatom, the state nuclear operator, who exerted informal control over appointments and procurement decisions and pressured contractors to pay kickbacks.
Patterns of politically driven appointments, opaque decision-making and rent extraction have been reinforced by the uneven quality of public administration at a time when Ukraine’s civil service reforms, though ambitious, remain incomplete.
Many ministries are understaffed, underpaid, and overloaded with functions inherited from the Soviet administrative model. While EU-aligned ministries — such as finance, digital transformation, economy, and justice — have made substantial progress, others lack the analytical capacity, internal controls, and personnel systems needed to maintain professional standards.
Ukraine lacks a strong culture of transparent donations to political parties, and campaigns frequently rely on the personal wealth of candidates or the resources of major business groups, reinforcing political loyalty networks and making officials beholden to sponsors rather than voters.
According to a 2025 Sociopolis survey, 78.2% of Ukrainian adults believe corruption has increased since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, while only 4.5% believe it has fallen.
Public concern reflects this urgency. In most national surveys conducted since 2023, corruption consistently ranks as one of the top two threats facing the country, often just behind the war with Russia. According to the study, presented by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), corruption is perceived as the second most serious problem for Ukraine: 71.6% of respondents identify it as a major national issue, surpassed only by Russia’s full-scale aggression at 89.7%.
This underscores a key point: corruption is regarded as a central issue despite the nation fighting for its life. Ukrainians do not view corruption as a secondary problem to be addressed after victory; they see it as a core national security threat that directly affects the war effort.
Ukrainian society often demands “quick punishments” and public shaming, which fuels political campaigns centered on anti-corruption slogans but rarely leads to institutional change. Such cycles of populist mobilization can unintentionally reproduce the same system, as new political actors quickly revert to patronage-based governance.
The current investigations, while producing negative global headlines for Ukraine at a crucial period of the war, could demonstrate that anti-corruption institutions are capable of acting independently. Or it could become another episode in the familiar cycle of media shock, a few detentions, selective accountability, and the gradual fading of political attention.
Ukraine has built the institutions required for transparency and accountability while implementing reforms unthinkable a decade ago. But institutions alone cannot win the fight. Structural weaknesses continue to limit the effectiveness of formal reforms and, without sustained political will, judicial reform, and irreversible guarantees of independence for anti-corruption bodies, progress will remain fragile.
The test now is not whether Kyiv can launch investigations, but whether it can complete them; not whether it can expose corruption, but whether it can ensure consequences for those responsible.
The measure of success will be the number of powerful individuals in jail.
Kateryna Odarchenko is a political consultant, a partner of the SIC Group Ukraine, and president of the PolitA Institute for Democracy and Development. A specialist practicing in the field of political communication and projects, she has practical experience in the implementation of all-Ukrainian political campaigns and party-building projects.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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