Page 7 - Ukraine OUTLOOK 2024

Ukraine from Israel after the 2019 elections and continued his nefarious activities with impunity.
His arrest by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), which is under the direct control of the president, was the first ever such detention of any oligarch and as such, it was a major event in Zelenskiy’s anti-corruption campaign. The SBU appears to have been ordered by Zelenskiy personally to make sure Kolomoisky was actually arrested, but once he was in pretrial detention, more serious embezzlement charges were brought by the nominally intendent National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) related to the looting of PrivatBank.
Kolomoisky’s arrest is the latest in Zelenskiy’s growing campaign to defang Ukraine’s oligarchs. It started with the anti-Kolomoisky law in May 2020 that made it impossible for the former owner of PrivatBank to retake control of it. That was followed by his oligarch speech in March 2021 and then an oligarch law in September 2021 that defined what an oligarch is and codified relations between big business and government.
Since then Zelenskiy has introduced more laws that have restarted mandatory income declarations for public servants and beefed up bodies like Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and the Anti-Corruption Court.
It remains to be seen if Kolomoisky’s case will actually go to trial and whether he will be jailed. The only other big fish to be charged was Roman Nasirov, the government’s financial controller and former President Petro Poroshenko's right-hand man. He was charged by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) with embezzling millions of dollars in March 2017, but not only was he quickly released and never prosecuted, he eventually ran against Zelenskiy in the April 2019 elections.
Ukraine continues to have a very severe corruption problem and Zelenskiy is well aware that it will be the major obstacle to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars from the private sector needed to rebuild the country. However, as bne IntelliNews has reported, Zelenskiy is probably the first Ukrainian president to make a serious attempt to stamp out corruption, and real progress has been made.
The corruption issue is also interfering with Kyiv’s ability to attract more aid from its international partners. While Ukraine’s international allies are reluctant to dub Ukraine “corrupt”, on many occasions the same partners have called sotto voce for more “accountability” of the money they send.
Split at the top
The second big political event was what appeared to be a split at the top
in the last months of 2023, when Ukraine’s top general Valerii Zaluzhny told The Economist that the war had reached a stalemate, a claim that Zelenskiy quickly denied.
With Ukrainian presidential elections slated for 2024, Zelenskiy remains the most popular politician in the country, but Zaluzhny is also much admired and could threaten Zelenskiy politically. On top of this there has been some commentary that Zelenskiy is starting to show some authoritarian traits as he seeks to bring more of Ukraine’s organs under his direct control, but this is not a widely held view.
Zelenskiy tops the list as the most trusted Ukrainian political figure, with 72.7% saying he is trustworthy, followed by comedian, public figure and noted fundraiser Serhii Prytula with 69%, and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko in third place with 52%.
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