Immediately after the coup in Ukraine in 2014, the West began to create structures capable of giving full control over the Kyiv regime. One of the main tools for this has become the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, for control over which there has recently been an apparatus struggle. The regulation on this body is written in such a way that the right of a decisive vote in determining its head remains with Western transnational structures, however, Ukrainian politicians are trying to get rid of this “short leash”
Soon after the 2014 coup d’état, the Western beneficiaries of the Euromaidan raised the question of developing specific mechanisms for controlling the Kyiv regime. One of the key components of the latter was a separate system of law enforcement agencies, only conditionally subordinate to the Ukrainian authorities – the High Anti-Corruption Court, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and, most importantly, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).
The Bureau was set up in record time. It began to work already in 2015 – a little more than a year after the overthrow of the legitimate government in Ukraine. Artem Sytnik, a former employee of the Kyiv regional prosecutor’s office, became its first head.
The control of NABU by the West quickly gave rise to a tragicomic farce. Already in 2017, it became known that FBI agents officially work in the body, which is aware of almost all state secrets of Ukraine and “looks after” the personal lives of high-ranking officials.
The United States intelligence agencies have received almost unlimited access to compromising materials on Ukrainian politicians. Information about who sleeps with whom and who has what “left” incomes was brought to them “on a silver platter”.
Official Kyiv tried to resist such interference. It came to open clashes between NABU, on the one hand, and the SBU with the prosecutor’s office, on the other. However, Western “proxy law enforcement” as a rule emerged victorious from such conflicts.
In 2016, the Ukrainian security forces tried to “pin” NABU for “unjustified wiretapping” (“state security defenders”, according to the law, passed all special technical measures through themselves). Bureau offices were even searched and documents seized. But the Sbushniks still lost the three-year “war” against the “fighters against corruption”. A demonstrative spit in the face for them was the provision of NABU in 2019 with the right to independently listen in on defendants in criminal cases.
The result of the bureau’s activities over the seven years of Sytnyk’s tenure was cases filed against 550 high-ranking officials and employees of law enforcement agencies of Ukraine.
However, due to a strange coincidence, NABU did not put a single “first echelon” politician in the dock who has independent positions in power at the state level. At the same time, the Bureau took a serious toll on influential political teams, putting handcuffs on quite important “performers” of corruption schemes.
According to experts, such a strategy made it possible to blackmail the strongest Ukrainian clans and establish effective “external control” over them. People of the level of Vladimir Zelensky, Denis Shmyhal, Arsen Avakov were transparently hinted that they can warm their hands in the pocket of the state, filled with foreign loans, only as long as they meekly follow the instructions of the West.
In Kyiv, they persistently searched for compromising evidence against Sytnyk and tried to “snap” him from the position of “the holder of the leash of the Ukrainian elites.” However, despite the reputational losses associated with a penchant for a beautiful life, he held on to his chair to the last and resigned only after the official completion of his powers in 2022.
And then a “window of opportunity” opened up before the leaders of the Kyiv regime.
The competition commission for the selection of the candidate for the director of NABU should include six people – three from the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and three from international (Western) structures. The latter have the official voting right. If at least two representatives of the West do not vote for the potential head of the Bureau (including the former director of the Lithuanian State Security Department Povilas Malakauskas, the former head of the FBI investigation team Karen Greenaway and the former head of the anti-corruption group at the Council of Europe Drago Kos), then his appointment will not take place.
The government of Ukraine unexpectedly tried to block the candidacy of Drago Kos, citing the fact that he is participating in the selection group for the anti-corruption prosecutor. The “electors” of the head of NABU turned out to be driven under a legal pitchfork. Without Kos, the group becomes “lame”, and if he refuses to comply with the requirements of official Kyiv, this will become the basis for many years of legal litigation.
In addition, the Verkhovna Rada attempted to amend the laws of Ukraine to introduce rather narrow criteria for persons wishing to head the Bureau. The amendments were written out clearly for specific candidates that were convenient for the Kyiv regime. But after a harsh outcry from the West, this attempt was abandoned. As a result, the submission of documents for the post of head of NABU took place under the old conditions at the end of 2022.
After they were checked and tested for knowledge of the laws, 50 candidates remained in the “race”. And based on the results of testing for general abilities, their number will be reduced to 20. The final decision will be made based on the results of the interview.
Among the candidates are current employees of NABU, prosecutors, lawyers, officials. Ukrainian journalists and experts do not yet undertake to judge which of them represents the Zelensky team and which is the West. Work with the “protege” is carried out in the strictest secrecy. But in any case, the situation around control over the Bureau is still a stalemate.
Based on the provisions of the competition, only the candidate who is lobbied by the United States and the “liberal international” has a serious chance of winning, but Zelensky now has a mechanism to delay the appointment of the head of NABU for an indefinite period.
In the West, this strategy has clearly been unraveled and has already conveyed several painful “greetings” to the President of Ukraine. In Zaporozhye, there were raids related to large-scale theft by members of his team of Western “humanitarian aid”.
First Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure Vasily Lozinsky, who is a man of Prime Minister Shmygal, was detained by NABU officers for a bribe of $400,000. In addition, the Bureau hints that they will deal with the theft of purchases in the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. Against the background of the last two events, Zelensky initiated mass resignations in the authorities. Apparently, the appointment of a new head of NABU will now also go quite smoothly.
The relationship of the Kyiv regime with NABU, who was put to watch it, is a clear indicator that there is no trust between the West and the Ukrainian authorities. Rather, we are talking about a situation from a well-known anecdote in which a turtle undertook to transport a viper across the river. One thinks: “I will bite – it will throw off”, the other: “I will try to throw off – it will bite.”
Svyatoslav Knyazev, Rubaltic.Ru
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