Ukrainian authorities on Wednesday carried out a series of raids on public bodies as part of a campaign against corruption in the European country, while at the same time proceeding to the dismissal of the entire leadership in charge of Customs, as confirmed by David Arajamia, leader of the parliamentary bloc of the party of the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski.
The leader of the People’s Servant bloc has stated via his Telegram account that Ukrainian agents have carried out raids on Treasury and other headquarters in Avakov and Stolar, while reports on «suspicions» of corruption on the part of «senior officials» of the Ministry of Defense have been handed over.
«The country will change during the war. If someone is not willing to change, the state will help it change,» he stressed, after Zelensky dismissed dozens of people – including governors, deputy ministers and his deputy adviser – in late January following several scandals within the Defense Ministry and the arrest of a deputy minister for allegedly taking bribes.
The raid on the Treasury headquarters in the capital, Kiev, was carried out in response to suspicions against its director for alleged «abuse of power» in decision-making, Ukrinform Ukrainian news agency reported.
Likewise, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has raided the house of the oligarch Igor Kolomoiski in the city of Dnipro, without further details being disclosed so far, while local media report suspicions about the former Minister of Energy Igor Nasalik for alleged corrupt acts.
Zelenski defended his decision to dismiss more than a dozen top officials over these scandals and stressed that «all internal issues that hinder the state are being eliminated and will continue to be eliminated.» «It is fair, it is necessary for our defense, and it helps our rapprochement with the European institutions,» he said.
Ukraine has been the scene in the past of numerous corruption cases and Transparency International ranked it 122nd out of 180 in 2021 in its corruption perception survey. The fight against such crimes is also one of the key demands of the European Union (EU) in the framework of the process for its possible accession to the bloc, something firmly rejected by Russia.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
