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Ministry, having fired the previous Minister Oleksii Reznikov in September, who was not personally accused of corruption but oversaw a ministry plagued with repeated scandals. The same month, Zelenskiy also sacked all the heads of regional military recruiting centres, who were widely known to be selling medical exemption from service for several thousand of dollars a pop.
But despite the progress, Zelenskiy still has to pass his own Nasirov-test. At the end of last year, the SBU, which was under the direct control of the president, arrested Ihor Kolomoisky on fraud charges. Kolomoisky is one of Ukraine richest and most notorious oligarchs who looted his PrivatBank of $5.5bn worth of deposits and is also widely credited with putting Zelenskiy into office thanks to the backing of his media empire.
Kolomoisky remains in jail, but he has not been sent to trial yet and according to local reports is trying to use his businesses to pressure the government into dropping the charges. If Kolomoisky is convicted and jailed then that really would be a revolution: a Ukrainian president who is both democratically elected and honest.
2.5 Orban backs down again and lets Ukraine €50bn EU aid go ahead
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has backed down and withdrawn his veto of the European Union’s four-year €50bn aid plan for Ukraine.
European Council President Charles Michel said the swift compromise on February 1 “locks in steadfast, long-term, predictable funding for Ukraine”.
At the start of a special European Union Council summit in Brussels, Orban agreed to allow the package to go ahead, with the figleaf of possible annual discussions on its progress and a potential review after two years.
The Hungarian strongman had come under huge pressure since he vetoed the package at a summit before Christmas, while letting Ukraine's accession negotiations go ahead. EU figures have floated the idea of freezing EU aid to Hungary indefinitely or launching Article 7 proceedings to suspend Hungary’s voting rights, threats Budapest called “blackmail”.
Orban had held out for annual reviews of the aid programme, which would have given him regular opportunities to hold the bloc to ransom, an eventuality the other EU leaders wanted to avoid at all costs. It would also not have given Kyiv the guarantee of long-term funding.
Now there will be the possibility of one review, after two years, but only if the Council unanimously agrees. “If needed, in two years the European Council will invite the Commission to make a proposal for review in the context of the new MFF [medium-term financial framework],” the conclusions state.
Orban had also proposed keeping the package outside the overall EU budget without common borrowing for it, but this would have been far more cumbersome to organise.
The EU council crisis demonstrates once again both how the Hungarian
14 UKRAINE Country Report February 2024 www.intellinews.com