(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Ukraine has again been voted Europe's most corrupt country. A September survey by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) showed that 40 percent of Ukrainians have experienced having to bribe public servants over the past twelve months – an increase from 37 percent in April to 2014. Tahsin Yasin, who heads the Ukrainian branch of the French food company Danone, tells Reuters: “Illegal taxation occurred during Yanukovych. Fortunately it did not affect us at that time, but now they are targeting us despite so-called reforms. We are dealing with a completely unprofessional mafia that is simply trying to get as much as possible as long as they are in power. ”
Another survey by the International Republican Institute (IRI) in August showed that while 11 percent of Ukrainians believe the fight against corruption has been strengthened following the deposition of Yanukovych, the full 51 percent says that the fight against corruption has been poorer.
In a poll Gallup conducted in the summer 2015, 17 percent of Ukrainians said that they were satisfied with President Petro Poroshenko. By comparison, support for Yanukovych was never lower than 28 percent.
Shokin should have failed to prosecute hundreds of profiled corruption prosecutors.
Corruption charges and divisions. When Finance Minister Aivaras Abromavicius announced his departure in February, he accused politicians of the president's party of pushing him to hire "questionable people" who sought personal gain in state-owned companies. He particularly accused Igor Konenko, who is leading Poroshenko's block in parliament, for blocking the work of the ministry. In the fall, the same Konenko was accused by a former intelligence chief of laundering money and stealing government funds.
In January, Sergei Leschenko, MP from President Petro Poroshenko's Bloc, Prime Minister Arsenij Jatsenjuk and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov accused of corruption. Georgia's former president Mikhail Saakashvili, whom Poroshenko appointed governor of Odessa in May, called Jatsenjuk and Avakov for thieves who belonged to prison. The party's leader, Julia Tymoshenko, said in December that Jatsenjuk should be tried because the country is devastated by the soaring inflation "which is causing the nation's citizens to beggars and prices are rising so fast that people can no longer afford to buy anything ".
Donald Bowser, adviser to Ukraine's anti-corruption agency, told Al-Jazeera in December that well over NOK 100 billion a year is still being stolen from the state budget by corrupt officials. Bowser in particular accused Viktor Shokin, who was appointed Prosecutor General of Poroshenko in February 2015, to block the fight against corruption. Shokin should have failed to bring charges against hundreds of profiled corruption prosecutors who have been presented to him by the Anti-Corruption Committee in Parliament. Corruption committee leader Jegor Sobolev told Al-Jazeera that there is no political will either in parliament or in the presidential administration to clean up the corrupt judiciary: “The corrupt judges and corrupt prosecutors leave the new president, the new prime minister and many other members of the parliament to continue with the corrupt conspiracies established by Yanukovych. "
Banana Republic without bananas. Ukraine's economy shrank by 7 percent in 2014 and 12 percent in 2015. In addition to the war in Eastern Ukraine, this is due to the trade war that started when Kiev decided to sign the EU-Russia Association Agreement and scrap the Free Trade Agreement with Russia, which until then had hosted Ukraine's largest trading partner. Exports to the EU are mainly commodity-based. In an article in the Ukrainian edition of Forbes from August 2015, former governor Sergei Arbuzov complains that "in this once-powerful industrial nation, grain became the largest export commodity in 2015. Secondly, we find sunflower oil ... It is only the absence of banana production that prevents Ukraine in calling itself a banana republic. ”
While the Ukrainians previously spent an average of about 50 percent of your wages on food, alcohol and tobacco, they now have to spend 90 percent on the same.
Economist Erik S. Reinert wrote in an article in the Class Fight on January 13 this year that he expects free trade between the EU and Ukraine to result in massive industrial deaths, and that around 20 percent of the population will leave the country to look for work. In that case, that would mean eight million new job seekers entering an EU with a high unemployment rate. In addition to labor, it is first and foremost the export of agricultural products that is likely to find greater entry into the EU market – in a situation where European farmers are already struggling with heavy overproduction due to the trade war with Russia.
According to an article from the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, average income in Ukraine fell from NOK 2300 to NOK 1100 a month from 2013 to 2015. During 2015, food prices increased by 40 percent, while electricity prices doubled. While Ukrainians previously spent an average of about 50 percent of their wages on food, alcohol and tobacco, they now have to spend 90 percent on the same. Around a quarter of the Ukrainian population is below the poverty line. One of the few exceptions to the trend of increased poverty appears to be Ukraine's sixth richest man, President Petro Poroshenko. His wealth increased by 20 percent from 2014 to 2015.
Unless otherwise noted, the aforementioned survey shows that the United States has succeeded in its efforts to draw Ukraine closer to the West. Russia's brutal reactions to the US-backed Yanukovych deposition have led the share of Ukrainians who believe that the country should join the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) has dropped from 37 percent in 2013 to 14 percent in 2015, while those who will enter the EU from 42 percent to 55 percent. NATO supporters have grown from 34 percent to 41 percent since March 2014, while NATO resistance has been reduced from 43 percent to 30 percent. Seen from Washington, perhaps civil war, party bans, economic collapse and rising corruption are a price they have been more than willing to pay to weaken Russia's influence over Ukraine.
