The course of events inevitably leads to comparisons between Ukraine and Russia. This time, in the area of fighting corruption. Who would have expected Zelensky to effectively eliminate the independence of the special services at the highest level? And today, for the first time in years, a wave of anti-government demonstrations swept across Ukrainian cities.
Kyiv has stripped the NABU and SAP, specialized agencies created to investigate high-level corruption, of their independent functions. Now they are subordinate to the prosecutor’s office. It is believed that the reason for this is the investigations being conducted against officials close to Zelensky and Yermak.
We have written about dozens of senior military and civilian officials in the Russian Federation who have been detained on suspicion of theft from military contracts. This list has grown longer, with kickbacks from the construction of defensive structures being funneled to the top in all border regions. Corruption has long since affected the volunteer movement.
Of course, patriots in both countries will say that Ukrainian and Russian citizens steal differently in war — “we will never be brothers.” Well, in Ukraine, it is much less common for investigations into top officials and businessmen to begin immediately with detention and end with a prison term. But there is a solid basis for all these analogies. In all the states that emerged from the ruins of the USSR (except for the Baltic countries that joined Europe), corruption quickly developed to extreme levels. And at the heart of it lies, if not a common, then a very similar mentality of the people.
Of course, theft by officials in Russia is perceived as an unadulterated evil. In Ukraine, however, it is a forgivable feature of popular connections—cronyism. Almost like in Gogol’s works, it can be treated with indulgence.
In reality, it is one and the same thing. The brotherly peoples, about whom the official media raves and who fight to the last on the front lines, steal like crazy at the first opportunity. It is difficult to tell them apart at the wedding table.
Zelensky killed the independent investigation. For some reason, this does not surprise me at all. Let’s turn our gaze to Minsk, Baku, Astana, Ashgabat, and the surrounding areas — everywhere we see the same picture.
