Lawfare Daily: Insider’s View of Zelensky’s Anti-Corruption Fiasco

[Intro]

Anastasia Radina: There are political voices who want exactly this: preserve political influence over appointments of people and staffing institutions who are supposed to investigate politicians. To me, this is a clear conflict of interest and something to be avoided and prohibited at all costs.

Anastasiia Lapatina: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I am Anastasiia Lapatina Ukraine Fellow at Lawfare with a Ukrainian lawmaker Anastasia Radina.

Anastasia Radina: Nothing of this allows to combat any Russia’s influence imagined or real or whatsoever in anti-corruption institution, this is just a completely different story. Prosecutor general, political appointee controls anti-corruption investigation, full stop.

Anastasiia Lapatina: We spoke about the Ukrainian government's attack on the country's anti-corruption agencies, which led to the first mass protest in Ukraine since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.

[Main Podcast]

You're a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and you're a part of Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People. And what's more, you're also the head of the parliamentary committee on anti-corruption work, so all of that is to say that you were really in the middle of what we're about to discuss and sort of at the center of this candle in a way.

So for people who perhaps weren't following this what happened is that the government pushed through the Parliament very quickly, sort of in an unprecedentedly, quickly way, a bill that would kill the independence of two anti-corruption agencies. You were one of the people who sort of raised the alarm about this bill early on, so can you begin by telling us how you first learned about this bill, its existence, what's in it, and how you sort of realized that it's dangerous?

Anastasia Radina: So, to be completely honest, there were rumors about a week ahead of the events that something is in the making. And frankly, I had doubts that that would happen in the Parliament because I actually underestimated the possibility to pass questionable legislations through the Parliament in such a quick, like blitzkrieg manner.

The whole thing happened on Tuesday. As of Monday evening, there hasn't even been a bill on the agenda with respective provisions. There wasn't even public information of a committee meeting planned to introduce this amendments. The whole thing happened on Tuesday morning in such a way that, well, first the amendments were inserted into a bill that was on a completely different matter. Some members of the respective committee didn't know the committee meeting was happening.

The text of the bill wasn't published on the parliamentary website, which is, which is an obligatory part of the procedure until about like 10 minutes or 20 minutes before the vote. However, we managed to obtain a copy of the committee decision. Yeah, it was bad, it basically provided that special anti-corruption prosecutor's office, which is part of independent anti-corruption system of Ukraine, is not a independent institution anymore and has zero authority to take decisions in high profile corruption investigations.

But all this dec, all those decisions are passed to the prosecutor general who is a political appointee. Fairly say that the prosecutor general in Ukraine is the least politically protected law enforcement official in the country. So, it was obvious the piece of legislation is just not in the interest of independence investigation of high-profile corruption cases.

Anastasiia Lapatina: The Ukrainian anti-corruption infrastructure, it's quite complex, there are several bodies. Can you give some context on, on what these buddies are when they were created and, and what their work has been like since then?

Anastasia Radina: So, the story began after the Revolution of Dignity, which happened in 2013, 2014, when then president Yanukovich escaped the country and the scope of corruption machine that has been organized by him and his cronies has been uncovered.

2014, this is the year when anti-corruption in Ukraine actually began. So in general, the, the whole, the whole history of anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine, it is just 10 years old. Back in 2014, we understood that there literally was no law enforcement institution in the country either capable or willing to investigate high profile corruption and the ways of all prosecutorial bodies had nothing to do was real law enforcement and delivering justice. So the decision has been taken as a state policy to just create new institutions from scratch staff them with new people selected on open competition, which hasn't been the case with law enforcement before, give this institutions complete independence.

From this old prote, prosecutorial bodies and, and trust and trust them was investigating high profile corruption. And this is how there appeared national anti-corruption bureau to investigate and special anti-corruption prosecutor's office to prosecute. And then few years later, well basically not even few, but in 2019 there appeared high anticorruption court to hear cases, and only since 2019 has this whole infrastructure been complete.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And the Ukraine's western partners played a huge role in establishing all of these bodies, right? They put a lot of money, sent advisors, and we're kind of very hands-on involved, especially in the United States, right?

Anastasia Radina: That is true because creation of anti-corruption institution has been part of various framework of Ukraine's cooperation was international partners since 2014. For example, different components of either creation of, or independence of anti-corruption institutions in different periods has been part of memorandums with international monetary funds and then loan guarantees with the United States and then Visa Liberalization Action Plan with European Union, and then again, international Monetary Fund, United States, European Union. So, yes, it has been part of the frame of cooperation was international donors for a very long time.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So to do another little overview, the creation of these agencies is seen in Ukraine as sort of one of the main results of the Euromaidan or the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, it's this major achievement. A lot of Ukraine's, European and American aid has been tied directly to the success of these agencies and to the creation of these agencies, right.

For, for example, Ukraine got its visa free regime with Europe, which you know, I think is fair to say was sort of revolutionary for the Ukrainian people in a way, and for our opportunities in Europe specifically because we established these agencies and they got off the ground, would that be fair?

Anastasia Radina: Yes, absolutely. That is right.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So let's go back to the bill. The bill 12414 again. And so the bill concerns NABU, the National Anticorruption Bureau and SAPO, the Special Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office. So, just very quickly walk us through these amendments again in this bill.

What were they trying to do and how were they affecting the work of these two bodies, NABU and SAPO?

Anastasia Radina: So basically, first, it is important to say that those two bodies, they operate together, one cannot effectively operate without the other because any decision that might happen in the course of investigation is subject to consent from a prosecutor.

So the law effectively said that the prosecutor general, who previously had almost no authority over novel cases, according to this bill, received an opportunity to first look into the cases. Once again, prosecutor general political appointee has a right to receive any information from investigation of the most sensitive cases some of them related to political.

Second, the prosecutor general received an opportunity to give mandatory in the cases. To put it simpler, prosecutor general received a right to tell anti-corruption detectives what to do and therefore what not to do. And almost all serious decisions in the cases were, according to this amendment basically subject from consent, not by anti-corruption prosecutors, but from the prosecutor general. Which in effect left anti-corruption investigation subject to the whim or, or good will, or absence thereof of the prosecutor general.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So, there is this very sort of bizarre last minute committee meeting on Tuesday morning, and then a few hours later it gets on the parliament's floor, this bill and what happens? Can you take us into that sort of hour, hour and a half of the Parliament figuring out what's going on?

I, I know you, you made a post in Facebook, sort of, you know, trying to tell people like, oh my God, this is happening, everyone was scrambling to understand what was going on. Walk us through a little bit of your, of your memories of that day and, and how this amendment made it to the agenda.

Anastasia Radina: So that's, that's interesting because agenda is compiled by what is called a conciliatory council of representatives of the fractions represented in the parliament and normally most of the fractions would send against inclusion into agenda of any bill that the text of which has not been published in advance, in advance means 10 days before the event, but at least few days earlier, however, what's interesting in this specific case, to the best of my understanding, no fraction seriously objected to inclusion of the bill which hasn't been made public before.

For this to happen, there has to be highest political will for that, no chance whatsoever that this just happens, you know, by chance or because someone didn't, didn't understand what was going on. So the bill made it into the agenda. There were few attempts on the floor to table a motion to temporary suspense Speaker of the Parliament due to, due to this violation of rules of procedure of the Parliament, specifically failure to publish the bill, and then the way just the agenda has been compiled and the fact that amendments appear in a bill that, that wasn't a completely different matter in the first place.

This motion was not supported, at the same time you know, I, I've heard some of the colleagues claiming they, they haven't had an understanding that something was something serious was happening in the parliament. Now that. That would be improbable, unrealistic explanation because I, frankly speaking, can't remember, when was the last time, when the motion to temporary suspense, a speaker has been tabled and voted on.

There were speeches in the parliament from myself, from number of other colleagues, we even attempted to do something that is the last resort probably of political action in the Parliament, and that is to block the Tribune, to block the possibility to proceed with the vote on this bill. So absolutely impossible for someone not to, not to notice that something was happening and that something was, was very much not okay.

Anastasiia Lapatina: 263 lawmakers vote for this bill in the end. And this is all as, as we've said, like a matter of an hour after these amendments, sort of out of thin air appear, and 185 of those lawmakers are your colleagues from your party, from the president's party, servant of the people, how do you explain that? Why did they do it?

And I understand that this is a very multifaceted question because there is a lot of different parties. So can you walk us through the various explanations that there might be for what happened?

Anastasia Radina: Well, I can present the explanations that colleagues came up with. At the same time, I think I'm just not the right person to provide this explanation because I myself did not vote for this bill and tried everything basically possible on the floor in the parliaments to explain to colleagues that provisions in question were very dangerous and prevent them from being voted. The explanation that I've heard from colleagues ranged from failure to understand the nature of the bill. To an attempt to claim that the bill wasn't that bad because anti-corruption institutions were not shut down.

Frankly speaking for me, this was one of the most ridiculous explanations and this explanation, it actually persisted through various communication channels for a few days afterwards, various speakers tried to claim that, there is no problem, anti-corruption institutions do not did not cease to exist.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Zelensky himself said that, that that was his argument for several days.

Anastasia Radina: Well, again the fact that there is a building on which there is a name plate saying this is an anti-corruption institution, and there are people working in this building, but the institution does not have any powers to me this is not preserving anti-corruption institution as that that is basically obvious. And according to the bill that was voted, special anti-corruption prosecutor's office was turned into exactly this, a building with a name plate with people in there, but without real powers to basically do independent investigations of high profile corruption.

At the same time coming back to explanations that colleagues came up with it is with sadness that I have to say some of the colleagues actually thought that well, first they knew what they were voting for and they supported the idea that prosecutor general political appointee should be in more control under, over this investigations. And sadly enough, quite a number of colleagues actually applauded to the speech on the floor claiming that foreign experts and the foreign countries had allegedly too much influence over anti-corruption institutions.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right. I, I wanna actually stop on that 'cause it's, it's quite absurd if I may say that, but so this argument about the foreign influence sort of lies in, in this fact that in these bodies there are certain commissions that, you know, take part in choosing the director, correct me if I'm wrong on any of these things, of course, but there are various independent commissions that select, like the director of the agency or something like that.

And on those commissions, they're usually, and there's usually an equal amount of Ukrainian representatives and international independent experts who have no stake in choosing any particular person to be the, the director, because they're not from Ukraine, they don't have any political stake here. And so the idea is that that helps choose the most independent and solid person possible. And so some lawmakers and some politicians think that that's, you know, foreign interference, that it's this sort of new colonial thing that's happening that Europe and the U.S. have too much influence on, on the work of Ukrainian anticorruption agencies, which is the exact same argument that Putin has used before.

Moreover, he's, he's talked about this, and this is the extremely absurd part of it all in the, in one of these speeches that he gave before, on the day he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, that big speech, the full of a historical fact, and ramblings about militarization or whatnot. He actually spoke about NABU and SABO and he said that they're run by these, you know, western new colonial, you know, people who spread influence.

And so some of these lawmakers were using the exact same argument that Putin does, which is just very interesting. And on top of that there has been reporting that dozens of these lawmakers that voted for these provisions were themselves subject to investigations by these agencies, right? So clear conflict of interest.

Anastasia Radina: So you summed it all up perfectly. That's exactly what happened, all correct. I don't think we have exact information as to the number of MPs who are themselves subject to investigation.

Anastasiia Lapatina: You're right, I may be overstating

Anastasia Radina: Not without, not without those who don't have the notifications of suspicion served, but yeah, there definitely are people who voted in a situation of conflict of interest, although again, given the fact that we're, that there were 263 votes in favor if you deduct those who might have acted in the conflict of interest, that would still be enough to have the law adopted, sadly. And going back to this argument of foreign interference.

Now, we've been dealing with this argument since probably 2016, I've been working in civil society then basically advocating for involvement of this international experts and selection commissions for leadership of independence institutions specifically in order to guarantee that this leadership is independent because we walked down the path of various options for having this independence, commissions, and nothing other than participation of international experts nominated by international partners, nothing other than that worked.

Every time we, for example, tried to introduce participation of civil society, the government would come up with the I'm sorry to say, but just the go and go NGOs and try to introduce dependent people through this through, through this gap. And it just didn't, didn't work. So for me, every time I hear this pseudo sovereignty concern, what I actually hear is that there are political voices who want exactly this preserve political influence over appointments of people and staffing institutions who are supposed to investigate politicians. To me, this is a clear conflict of interest and something to be avoided and prohibited at all costs.

Anastasiia Lapatina: There has been some reporting in the Ukrainian media about the fact that many lawmakers were asked by, you know, representatives of the president's office, and some were pressured and there was this certain pressure campaign around this bill and you know, there were these phrases like, you know, your vote on this bill will determine to the president if you're really on his side or something like that. Are you aware of any such instances? Have you heard of this?

Anastasia Radina: What I can say as a fact that I myself was never approached, was anything like this, I wasn't pressured, I wasn't asked to vote for this bill. Partially, I think because well, my position has been clear through my six years of the Parliament, have never voted and never supported anything that would limit opportunities for anti-corruption institutions.

At the same time, just this whole way in which this happens, I mean, introducing amendments, well, first of all let's say that let's also mention that that Tuesday was an extraordinary session of the Parliament called for a week earlier, and then this amendments were introduced in the morning, voted around noon, and forwarded to presidential administration for Mr. President to sign it in the afternoon. And this very evening, the bill was published and came into effect the next day on Thursday. This is unprecedented.

And as much as one would want to present this as an unfortunate sequence of events, the sequence of events would just, I can't imagine this being possible without active participation of the presidential administration. That's just, that's just impossible, impossible. Especially the fact that the bill was published on this the same day. At the same time, I think it's important to, to also say it here, that it is also very important that the correcting bill has been submitted by Mr. President because I can only speculate, but I'll allow myself the speculation, without the presidential bill, the problem would not have been solved, and we would still be in a discussion as to how to fix this. So, presidential bill was also instrumental in fixing the, the, the problem.

Anastasiia Lapatina: We'll unpack that a little bit later, but I wanted to ask a very important question here, which is, so how did the government sell this? What was the official reason for trying to do this? How did the government explain it?

Anastasia Radina: You mean the necessity you have this amendment?

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yes. The initial, the initial bill. Yeah, what was the official version of what happened?

Anastasia Radina: Well, frankly speaking, I cannot remember, and I don't think there has been a clear explanation campaign.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, that's part of the problem. The lack of communication, right?

Anastasia Radina: Laying down and explaining what, what is there in this bell, and why is this needed? I think what is also worse, worse noting is that this bill did not happen on its own in a way. Why? Because Monday before the Tuesday on which everything happened, there were a number of searches and investigative activities conducted by security service and also state bureau investigations against detectives of anticorruption bureau.

I am sad to say that some of them were physically abused during this investigative activities. When I say physically abused, unfortunately what I mean is that they were beaten. As simple as this, rather harshly and severely, some of them were, were sort notification of suspicion in state treason. Some of them were sort, notification of suspicion were following traffic accidents that happened in various years.

One of those happened in 2020, 21, so this all happened at the same day and the next day the Parliament basically adopted the decision that has been adopted. This whole thing as much as you try as, as one might try to see it, otherwise just does not look as anything else than coordinated campaign.

And one more thing here. The case that has been presented by State Security Service as alleged state treason on behalf of one of NABU detectives it actually does not stand any scrutiny as BU State Security Service of Ukraine they published what they claimed was wire taping of the phone conversations the, the person who, who was charged was state treason, and they explained that he allegedly was trying to sell drugs to Pakistan, which is part of Russia. However, when you actually listen to the materials that SBU itself published.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So everyone listen to it.

Anastasia Radina: You don't hear anything, anything about drugs and then it's clearly not Pakistan, but Uzbekistan. However, the person charged on the pretext of this of this phone conversations, he is still in pretrial detention. And unfortunately and this is also not a coincidence, he was effectively robbed of a possibility to appeal this detention because appeals hearing has been scheduled for the end of August when he would almost serve all of the or considerable parts of the periods of his pretrial detention as ruled by first instance court. And this is again, also not a coincidence in my humble opinion.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right, it's totally worth mentioning yes, that this bill wasn't an isolated incident, but it, it seemed like the most recent and the most radical step because as you've said, there were mass searches across NABU and SAPO offices, and there was a smear campaign in the media that some have pointed out allegations of certain staffers at NABU, which you just brought up, working for Russia and, and then this bill.

So by the time the bill was pushed through the Parliament, it was sort of very clear to the civil society what was happening. And several hours later people start protesting and right near the president's office, and these are the first mass protests since the beginning of Russia's full scale invasion, since 2022, which I think is extremely significant, right, like–

Anastasia Radina: Absolutely.

Anastasiia Lapatina: We, we both know that protesting is something of a national sport for us, for Ukrainians. People protest all the time about various issues and. I mean, it's interesting because it's not like we haven't had any scandals worth protesting about in three years.

There were a lot of mass corruption schemes that were uncovered various issues with, you know, Zelensky’s power grabs and the powers of Yermak and his chief of stuff, but, but people didn't protest it, it sort of gave the benefit of the doubt to the government that this is war time, we have to stay united.

Why do you think this was the issue that brought a bunch of young people who were kids when these agencies were created? And I'm a part of that generation, right? Like this sort of post-Maidan generation. Why did it take this issue, this very sort of technical, bureaucratic, hard to understand thing to make people protest?

Anastasia Radina: I think you still already started to provide answer to this question when you said that previously a number of scandals were uncovered, so when the government started going against those very institutions who uncovered alleged corruption or misuse of power and basically different domains, this was perceived by people as injustice and the Ukrainians are very, very sensitive to injustice.

So, I would not claim that people went specifically out of support for certain leaders of anti-corruption institutions, no, but they perceived that what was happening was unjust, that what was happening was against the promise of fighting corruption through independent institutions, and that this is just not something young Ukrainians are ready to accept.

Anastasiia Lapatina: I think the role of Ukraine's European integration is also very important, right? Because the success of these agencies is to this day, directly tied to Ukraine's European bid. And so, you know, when the bill came out, everyone was basically saying like, I guess we could kiss EU goodbye now. And I, I think that also played a role, right?

Anastasia Radina: That's part of the story, yes, but I would still say that the feeling of injustice was a major motivator behind the protests.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So the official line from Zelensky and other officials around him in the days after the, the bill and the protest was that NABU/SAPO will have to work and they will continue to work, but the bill was needed to counter Russian influence and you know, so this argument of Russian influence was, you know, what they landed on eventually.

Is there any evidence that exists that there is considerable or problematic amount of Russian influence on NABU and SAPO? And also that the government was genuinely trying to address that issue?

Anastasia Radina: First, I'm not sure It was Mr. President himself who claimed that the bill was necessary, this specific bill that was voted was necessary to Russia, Russiaa. I don't think this has, has been his message, but you are right that it has been voiced by, various speakers and various politicians. This is just not true 'cause again, the bill was about subjecting anti-corruption institutions to the prosecutor general. Nothing of this allows to combat any Russia's influence imagined or real or whatsoever in anti-corruption institutions. This is just a completely different story.

Prosecutor general, political appointee, controls anti-corruption investigation, full stop. It has nothing good to do whatsoever with, with State Security Service claims to uncover Russia's influence and then sadly, we are still waiting for State Security Service to produce more serious evidence as to Russia's influence on anti-corruption institutions because the evidence they have produced so far, the wire taping that I have referred to earlier, well, this just does not does not stand any scrutiny.

Anastasiia Lapatina: A few points on this as well. I've, I've read the amendments and the words Russian and influence aren't even mentioned in the text, so there's that.

Anastasia Radina: Of the initial bill? Absolutely, right.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, yeah. Yes, the initial bill that was passed and then another, you know, third or fourth absurd part of this whole story is that there are still dozens of pro-Russian and Russian linked lawmakers in the Ukrainian parliament, right, whose party was banned, but they still retained their mandates for some, you know, interesting reason that we’re yet to understand. And all of these pro-Russian lawmakers whose, you know, actual self-proclaimed job is to push Russian interest in Ukraine, that's sort of why they're there, right according to my speculation, they all voted for this bill.

So the pro-Russian lawmakers voted for the bill whose alleged goal is to clear the part of the Ukrainian government and these agencies of Russian influence like it I, I, I loved how some people in the civil society, they would say like who is this explanation for? Like who do, who do they think is gonna believe this argument ‘cause nobody did. And so then people started, of course asking the question of, okay, so that what's the real reason?

And various in-depth investigations in the media and various reporting showed that NABU and SAPO were very actively investigating people in the president in Volodymyr Zelensky’s immediate circle, some former officials of the president's office and some current ones as well, and so that was the supposed reason, you don't even need the reporting there is a, there is a case that's out in the open read, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Chernyshov, who was charged with corruption more than a month ago before this whole scandal. Supposedly that was the last drop, right?

Chernyshov is allegedly a close friend of Zelensky and family friend. So that's the explanation that the Ukrainian civil society sort of understands. What do you think about it?

Anastasia Radina: So this is definitely an explanation that some reputable investigative journalists come up with.

Now I'm of course not in a position to command on investigative activities on of anti-corruption institutions. None of that is out there in the open, apart from notification of suspicion to a former minister for national unity at the same time. What I can refer to is a press conference by leaders of by hats of anti-corruption institutions that they gave on the very day when this questionable to say the least, bill was first adopted.

And in this press conference, they indeed say that they attribute this a whole attack on anti-corruption institutions, and by attack they meant searches and notification of suspicions and the bill and reviving traffic accident cases back from 2024, so they attributed it to some sensitive cases that were in the process of investigation in this institution.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So people protest for days and on the first day, Zelensky signs the bill even though, you know, even after hours of protest, Zelensky signs the bill at midnight. He sort of is quiet for several hours, there is a very short statement that's published in the middle of the night after it. And then people keep protesting, the, the, the crowd is like three times bigger the next day, the day after it's published, there's, you know, and now there are protest in more than 60 in cities, I think. So truly countrywide demonstrations. And several days later Zelensky ultimately makes a U-turn, and he says, okay, I, there should have been more dialogue.

He says something that I think is quite funny, he says, well, I, I'm focused on the war, so this, I'm putting words in his mouth, but he was basically making the argument that it slipped his attention that it happened without his notice, and there should have been more dialogue and he which is out to NABU SAPO, they have a conversation other lawmakers, other sorry, law enforcement agencies, not lawmakers, and he says that he will present a new bill that's gonna fix everything. And so that ultimately happens, the president suggests a new bill that reverses almost everything that was in the initial bill.

What happened there, to your knowledge, like that period between the initial bill and the new bill being passed? What are those conversations that you're hearing? And I'm interested in, since you're part of the Parliament, I'm really curious about what, what your colleagues are, are saying, right.

And I know that that must have been a very difficult period for them because the, you know, the entire civil society turned on them and the, the, the public comments that people were making about these lawmakers, it was, it was truly comparable to Yanukovych times, right? Like publishing full list of people who voted for it and just reputations were destroyed on that day. So what, what was the, what was, what were the conversations and the emotions in that period between the two bills?

Anastasia Radina: First, to the best of my recollection, Mr. President announced the, this correcting bill on Val Brady on Wednesday afternoon. So the day after the bill

Anastasiia Lapatina: Sorry, yes.

Anastasia Radina: And on Thursday the bill was already registered in the Parliament. So that happened pretty quickly and this also happened after Mr. President had a meeting with leaders of anti-corruption institutions. As to the mood in the Parliament, now it is no secret at least at this moment already, that some rather dramatic, dramatic situations happened when younger family members, like children or grandchildren of lawmakers were very angry, to put  it diplomatically, with the vote of, of some of the MPs.

So that has been rather dramatic for some on a personal and family level at the same time it is also not a secret because a conversation and conversations in one of the WhatsApp chats of the fraction has been leaked a few days ago, so it's no secret that some of the colleagues would still support the, or stand behind their previous vote. And were not very happy with this with what you called a U-turn. And this is exactly why I am saying that without the presidential bill, the situation had very considerable and sad chance of not having been corrected by now.

Anastasiia Lapatina: There was also reporting that suggested that many lawmakers were considering to like, just quit their jobs. And, and some have in a very dramatic fashion, right? That, that they sort of were used, that the government, the, the president's office asked them to vote on this and now their reputation is destroyed and they didn't know what they were doing, so they're never voting on anything again. And, you know, just, goodbye, I'm out.

So there was really worried that, you know, when this new bill was presented that now the president's office had to summon hundreds of these people to vote and reverse what they just did again, and that's pretty awkward, obviously, to say the least. But ultimately it passes, and again, in a, in a, in a very interesting fashion because more people vote for it than, you know, that, than voted for that initial bill, it was the sort of unanimous vote from everyone. But, so let's talk about what's in this new bill that the president created in cooperation with the leaders of NABU and SAPO, does it fix the problem?

Anastasia Radina: For NABU and SAPO yes, it does. It is true that the bill was designed, was active participation of leaders of anti-corruption institutions.

That is true. So, there has been a lot of debate as to some provisions of the bill saying that. Those NABU detectives who have family unoccupied territories are to un undergo polygraph, and that SBU security service of Ukraine has powers to look into, into some intelligence related aspects of NABU and SAPO work.

I understand why this provisions may seem awkward, at the same time, it is not a situation as if this provision should reduce any additional opportunities to pressure anti-corruption role because anti-corruption institutions have their own polygraph and have had it for years, and State Security Service has powers to look into exact things that the bill says they should look into and has had this powers for years as well, so it, it is not as if something new and revolutionary has been introduced in terms of controlling the work of anticorruption institutions.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So essentially everything about the anti-corruption agencies that was passed was ultimately sort of revised and put back into the status quo that we had before.

Anastasia Radina: Yes.

Anastasiia Lapatina: But there are some provisions about the general prosecutor that remained and people paid less attention to, right, which are still quite worrisome.

Anastasia Radina: Yes, there are provisions that have nothing do with anti-corruption institutions and even with anti-corruption prosecutors, but that would still allow Prosecutor General to, I'll simplify the matter, but basically to dismiss and to appoint prosecutors without regular procedures. Yes, this is this is a provision that worried some of the experts and it is my expectation that this provision will still be questioned in the parliament and legislative initiatives to reverse this as well will be tabled.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, it's probably worth explaining for, you know, a, a western, an American audience that the general prosecutor in Ukraine is historically has been this sort of notorious figure, like at the times of Yanukovych and before they were always, you know, completely dependent on the president kind of people, political appointees who would sort of carry out the dirty work of the, of the regime if we're talking about Yanukovych times. So that's why a lot of, you know, civil society and other experts are worrying that like we can't keep expanding the powers of the general prosecutor 'cause that office has a really bad history, and it's better when those powers are in check.

I wanna talk about some of the consequences of this whole thing, right? 'cause the, the new bill was passed NABU and SAPO went up or back to normal, kind of, sort of, but I, it feels like there must be some sort of like, there, there is some aftertaste, right? Do you think there will be any long-term consequences for Zelensky and his team domestically and internationally? I think those are two different parts of the equation.  

Anastasia Radina: First, I would not agree with the statement that everything is back to normal. Why? Because, again, NABU detectives are still in pretrial detention and with allegations at least public parts of which does not seem to be well justified. However, people are basically in prison in very serious conditions and I would even go as far as to say that those conditions are part of the general atmosphere of psychological pressure on detectives. So in this regard, it is not back to normal. It is not back to normal and I would not be sadly, I would not be very much surprised if additional notifications of suspicion was likewise questionable or not very strong explanations are to follow in coming months, zo that's, that's very important to keep in the focus.

As to consequences, now, it is no secret because this has, this has already sounded in number of public statements or comments from representatives of number of international partners that sadly this whole ordeal, it's influenced the trust for Ukraine and the task of Ukraine now, and the task of the government is to do everything possible and frankly, everything impossible as well to revive this trust and, to prove its good intent.

The good thing here is that some steps were made by the government already, like appointment of the head of another law enforcement institution, Bureau of Economic Investigations, now, this, this person has won an open competition with international experts, however, previous governments had basically refused to proceed with an appointment, which contradicts the law, but still the government refused. Last week, the new government made a lawful decision to proceed with an appointment and this of course contributes to a certain extent, to the restoration of trust. However, my feeling is that much more needs to be done in order to fully restore this trust.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Before we wrap up, I think we should connect it to, again, sort of to the American audience and the American, Trump reality. Some people in Ukraine have stipulated that the, the timing of, of the scandal is connected to the fact that the United States used to be very invested in, in, in everything that we just talked about, right?

Like the, the State Department and the embassy they, they played a very important role in sort of keeping watch on Ukraine's reform progress, pressuring the Ukrainian governments when needed, and now, you know, to, to say the least, they don't care. The, the Trump administration couldn't care less probably about Ukraine's domestic politics, right. And then on the European Union side, you know, they're our partners, they're helping us survive. And so they've also been sort of feeling very awkward about it, about pointing our faults to us, right.

And I think it's important to point out that this has worried the Ukrainian civil society that, that the Ukrainian people and sort of corruption watchdogs, they, they don't like that the, the Ukrainians civil society wants the West to keep a close watch on, on their form progress. But anyway, do you agree? Do you think that there is a role that the U.S. could play here that it's currently not playing and so there is perhaps this sort of feeling of impunity that, you know, we can do this quickly, rush through this in a matter of hours and the allies don't care, Europe is scared of saying anything, so we can just get away with it.

Anastasia Radina: I would agree that in past maybe half a year, eight months as leading to this notorious Tuesday when the bill attack and anti-corruption institutions has been passed, the government hasn't quite delivered in time, a number of obligations that the government itself signs under and to, as a commitment, and this did not generate very serious consequences for the government.

Now, whether the fact that partners decided not to react in a harsh way is stronger, justified or not, this is a separate discussion, but in general it is true that the government has acquired a history or experience of delaying on certain conditional analysis and not facing immediate uncomfortable consequences and for some vested interests this of course, sadly contributed to the feeling of impunity and to the feeling of wind of opportunities to do bad things and get away with this, Yeah.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Anastasia, thank you. This was great. I hope you'll come back on our podcast again.

Anastasia Radina: Thank you.

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