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Published on Friday, 28 April 2017 11:34 Category: Articles and Commentary Written by Valerii Pekar

Ukraine: The European frontier- a blog curated by Valerii Pekar.

Ukraine is currently considered one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. Some argue that this is just a perception, as Ukraine is also one of the most transparent countries in Europe, ever since it established an unprecedented openness of public data and private data of public servants (known as e-declarations). Countries with less data transparency could be very corrupt as well, but this is not a permanent focus of internal and international public opinion. Furthermore, corruption in Ukraine has been brought into focus since the Revolution of Dignity (EuroMaidan), which had a clearly pronounced anti-corruption orientation.

Nevertheless, corruption in Ukraine remains high both subjectively and objectively; therefore discussions on how to overcome it are much more productive than discussions about whether it is as high as may be perceived.

There are two principal approaches to the issue.

The first one, known in Ukraine as anti-corruption reform, is to ensure the inevitability of punishment for corruption. Traditionally in Ukraine corrupt bureaucrats, tax and custom inspectors, militiamen (an old name for police officers), prosecutors and judges are members of the same close-knit clans, so a corrupt state servant would never be punished, except in the rare occasions of aggravated clan wars. This is why a number of new independent institutions have been created. The National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialised Anti-corruption Prosecutors Office were introduced to investigate cases of high-level corruption, while the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) analyses the integrity of public servants and politicians.

By the beginning of 2017, NABU had initiated some 264 criminal cases and the NAPC had gathered 107,000 e-declarations of MPs, top government officials, judges, prosecutors, etc. Nevertheless, public activists are concerned about severe problems, and even rollbacks, in this sphere.

There are several major issues that have emerged as a result. The first major is that an independent and new anti-corruption court has not been established, as was demanded by the law. NABU cases, hence, go to the traditional corrupt courts and stop dead there. Second, the NAPC has not yet started a full-scale examination of the e-declarations, and the online register of e-declarations has many bugs and often does not work as it should. Third, some politicians have tried to undermine the independence of NABU by blocking the assignment of independent and trustworthy auditors. Fourth, until now NABU has had no legal right to wiretap communications and, in order to initiate wiretaps, it has to go to the traditional corrupt institutions which often immediately inform the suspects. Fifth, the law demands that investigation functions be transferred from the Prosecutor Generals Office to the newly established State Bureau of Investigations, but its head has not yet been assigned. Sixth, the mandates of the members of the Central Election Committee, one of the most corrupt institutions, expired long ago and new members have not been elected. Seventh, civil society organisations, the business community and international financial organisations have all demanded the dismissal of the extremely corrupt tax militia (a part of the fiscal service) and the establishment of an analytical demilitarised Financial Investigations Service under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance. Last, but not least, there are rumours that the examination of candidates to the reconstructed Supreme Court of Ukraine is not honest, and civil activists are demanding the publication of the tests of the applicants together with the grades, and to organise an online live stream of the interviews and to make public and transparent the attempts of the High Qualifying Commission of Judges to tackle the veto by the Public Integrity Council. All of these issues mentioned above, and some additional demands, were included to the Anti-corruption Declaration, signed on April 10 by dozens of authoritative NGOs and political parties.

Perhaps, the most important point is that the NAPC does not show any desire to organise the examination of e-declarations of state servants and MPs, while the parliament has adopted a law which forces the representatives of anti-corruption civil society groups to submit the same kind of e-declarations. Many NGOs consider this last fact as a declaration of war by corrupt politicians on the civil society.

While anti-corruption reform is slowing down and in some areas have even been rolled back, we have to consider another way to fight corruption, which is as important as the first method. This one is about undermining the sources of corruption, rather than catching individual corrupt officials.

The freer the economy is; the less space is available for corruption. Ukraines economy remains extremely "un-free" (166th rank in the Heritage Foundations Economic Freedom Index), and even the very efficient NABU, NAPC and Anti-corruption courts are not able to eliminate corruption in this turbid water.

State-owned enterprises are the greatest source of corruption. There are still approximately 3,500 of such enterprises in Ukraine; ten times more than the average European country. Their privatisation has been postponed for years by political clans which extract money from them. In addition, opening the agricultural market has been blocked again and again. Deregulation, an area where many achievements have been reached in previous years, has now slowed. Ministries and other state agencies still have a lot of obsolete and redundant functions, often concentrating powers like rules setting, inspection, administrative services, policy development and state property management. Verification of social subsidies has failed, because there are many ways to extract corrupt money from them. Tax systems remain complicated and non-transparent (at present the Ministry of Finance is fighting for automatic VAT refund to exporters, whereas the traditional manual refund is a major source of corruption). Education and public health remain very corrupt spheres due to their post-communist models of financing.

From this point of view, every reform in Ukraine is an anti-corruption one. Indeed, there have been some important breakthroughs. Gas market reform eliminated corruption in this sphere. The new patrol police, created from scratch, enjoy much greater public trust than the former militia due to its new practices. The National Bank has cleansed the financial system of many money-laundering banks. Deregulation has deprived corrupt bureaucrats from many important sources of income. Public procurements have been completely remade with the new online platform, the award-winning ProZorro. But comparing the successes of the three years since the EuroMaidan with the long to-do list, tasks set by civil society organisations, the EU and IMF, we see that the pace of change is unsatisfactory.

This is why we need to unite the efforts of the civil society and Ukraine's international partners to overcome this rollback and to increase the pace of reforms dramatically. Only joint pressure will work effectively.

Valerii Pekaris a co-founder of the Nova Kraina Civic Platform, a lecturer at the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School and a former member of the National Reform Council. He curates a blog titledUkraine: The European frontier.

The rest is here:
How to overcome corruption in Ukraine - New Eastern Europe

Ukraine is pinning its hopes on O. Torvald but will they be able to bring it home?

UKRAINE has chosen O. Torvald to represent them at this years Eurovision Song Contest.

But what is their background, how were they selected and what is O. Torvald singing?

Alamy

O. Torvald is a Ukrainian rock band formed in 2005.

The group recorded their first album named O.Torvald in 2008 after being signed by Moon Records.

The current line up of the metal group includes:Yevhen Halych, Denys Myzyuk, Oleksandr Solokha, Mykyta Vasylyev and Mykola Rayda.

In order to be selected as Ukraines contestants for EurovisionO. Torvald had to take part in a number of rounds of the national competition.

They were second in both the judges vote and the public vote during the semi-final on February 18, enough to see them through into the final.

During the final, they once again came second in both the judges votes and the televote awarding them enough points to claim victory, after a tense tiebreak.

As the current winners Ukraines entry will go straight into the final and will not need to compete in the semi-finals.

EPA

O. Torvald will perform theirtrack Time.

The song is written in and will be performed in English.

Sunbets Eurovision odds currently list Ukraine winning at 22/1.

Slow down Give me some time Turn down The volume of your cry Let's take time to find A place without violence Lets listen and hear The true meaning of silence

Getty Images

Ukraine have competed in the competition a total of 13 times since their 2003 debut.

They've taken the top spot twice in that time, impressive considering they only recently joined the competition.

Ukraine's first victory came in 2004 in their second year when singer Ruslana was victorious with Wild Dances.

They also won last year's contest with singer Jamala taking first place with the song 1944.

They are the first Eastern European country to win the competition twice.

The Eurovisionfinal is due to take place on Saturday May 13, with semi-finals held on May 11 and 13.

The event will be broadcast live from the International Exhibition Centre in the countrys capital Kiev.

The reigning champion Jamala will be in attendance on the night to hand over the honour to this years winner performers.

Visit link:
Who is Ukraine's Eurovision Song Contest 2017 entry? O. Torvald set to perform Time - The Sun

The death of an American member of an international monitoring team in eastern Ukraine in a landmine blast, which also injured a Czech colleague, is the latest act of lethal violence putting enormous stress on the countrys fragile ceasefire.

The response of the US State Department has, so far, been restrained, praising the courage of the monitors, expressing shock and sadness, and urgingRussia to use its influence with the eastern separatists to allow a full, transparent and timely investigation to take place.

Every move by the US in Ukraine is being watched anxiously by the countrys president, Petro Poroshenko. It is not just that he is worried that Washingtonmay weaken its backing for his country against Russia; the President is seeking to rehabilitate himself with Mr Trump after his government made little secret of backing Hillary Clinton in the US presidential election.

Mr Poroshenko and his ministers had been alarmed by Mr Trumps expressions of admiration for Vladimir Putin and remarks suggesting that he would accept the Russian annexation of Crimea. Ms Clinton, on the other hand, has long taken a combative stance towards the Kremlin in the Ukraine crisis.

There is evidence that Ukrainian officials helped the Democratic Party attemptsto uncover alleged illicit links between Mr Trump and Moscow. This included the activities of Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager, who had previously filled the same role with Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraines former president and an ally of Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian ministers and officials openly attacked Mr Trump during the election campaign. Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakovcalled him a clown and described his comments on Crimea as the diagnosis of a dangerous misfit on Twitter.

Yuriy Sergeyev, Ukraines permanent representative to the UN, posted: It seems that clown Trump has finally gone monkey s***amidst his circus tour. He is a bigger menace to the US than terrorism.

And Vadym Denysenko, an MP in the Poroshenko Bloc in Parliament, had no doubt that Trump has shown himself as a thick idiot who speaks whatever is needed to fit the mood of the crowd.

After Mr Trumps victory, Mr Sergeyev claimed his Twitter account had been hacked, while the others hastily deleted their posts. But anger in the Trump team has not been so easy to erase.

Mr Poroshenko is yet to see the US President. Efforts by the Ukrainian ambassador to Washington, Valeryi Chaly, to arrange a meetinghave been hampered by the belief of Trump team members that much of the collusion with the Democrats was by people connected to the embassy.

During the election campaign Mr Chaly had declared: Trumps future policy is about the aggressors appeasement and maintaining of the violation of territorial integrity of the sovereign nation and other breaches of international law.This changed, after the result, to: Republican Trumps electoral victory can have a positive impact for Ukraine It will happen much faster with Trump coming to power.

The Poroshenko government recently signed a contract rumoured to be worth $50,000 a month with a Washington lobbying firm with Republican connections in an effort to repair the damage. Their task is to set up meetings with Trump administration officials to strengthen relations between the US and Ukraine.

But it is Mr Poroshenkos rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, who got to see Mr Trump and was quick subsequently to publiciseto Mr Poroshenkos chagrin the meeting and the supposeddiscussion about Ukraines future.

A few days laterthe Ukrainian president finally managed to speak to the US President on the phone. But the talk, according to both American and Ukrainian officials, was somewhat general, dwelling on the need to end the violence in the east of the country, andlacking the robust backing for Kiev which used to come from the Obama administration.

President Poroshenko visited London last week and announced that Theresa May and Boris Johnson had assured him of full support against Russian aggression. But there is uncertainty about the Wests willingness to confront Moscow at this time. Mr Johnson failed in his much publicised attempt to get the G7 group to back tough new sanctions against Russiaover chemical strikes in Syria blamed on its allies, the Assad regime. Any new punitive measuresover Ukraine are highly unlikely in the near future.

Relations between the US and Russia have been strained by Mr Trumps ordering of air strikes on a regime airbase in Syria. But Mr Trump continues to send out the contradictory signals which have been the trademark of his administration. A day after saying relations with Russia were at an all time low, the US President declared things will work out fine between the USA and Russia.

Meanwhile, the various investigations into Mr Trumps Russian links continue with the spotlight once again on Ukraine. One recent allegation is that Mr Manafort received vast sums in suspicious payments from Mr Yanukovych.

Prosecutors in Kiev want to question Mr Manafort and say they have requested the assistance of James Comey, the director of the FBI, which is carrying out its own investigation into Russian links. The Poroshenko government would preferthis was not pursued, it is believed, so as not to further fray relations with the Trump team. But the prosecutors, who have been accused of covering up corruption by, among others, EU officials, are keen to show they are active and autonomous.

It seen as a sign of the Trump teams nervousness about what may unfold that it appears to be trying to distance itself from Mr Manafort. At a recent briefing to journalists, the White House spokesman Sean Spicer brought up Mr Manaforts name unprompted, and claimed, to general incredulity, that he played a very limited role, very limited amount of time in the presidential campaign.

But the investigations are not going away and the Ukrainian connection is likely to remain under critical scrutiny. The chill between the Poroshenko government and Mr Trump looks unlikely to thaw anytime soon.

More here:
Donald Trump forced to tread carefully over Ukraine amid ongoing Russia probe - The Independent

Ukraine has been engaged in a war to defend its borders for the past three years, leading to the deaths of more than10,000 volunteers, soldiers and civilians and creating an estimated 2 million internal refugees.

A benefit concert illustrating Ukraine's fight for freedom, dignity and independence will be held Saturday night in Buffalo.

The Ukrainian American Civic Center will present the concert, "Perseverance: A Visual & Musical Journey," at7:30 p.m. Saturday in theDnipro Cultural Center, 562 Genesee St. Organizers say amusical expressionof traditional Ukrainian and modern English tunes will be enhanced by a visual journey from the pastto the present situation in Ukraine.

The event will featureUkrainian performers plus Americans and Canadians of Polish or Ukrainian descent.Making a special guest appearance from Ukraine will be Serhiy Foma Fomenko, a soloperformer and lead singer of the band Mandry.

The proceeds from this non-profit production will go directly toward medical supplies for Ukraine through the Ukrainian American Freedom Foundation.

Tickets are available on-line at http://www.perseverance.bpt.me. Additional information can be found atwww.perseverance.buzz.

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Ukraine's battle for freedom will be highlighted at weekend concert - Buffalo News

MOSCOW In a move that further cements Russia's control over parts of eastern Ukraine, Russian officials announced Tuesday they will begin supplying electricity to separatist-controlled areas after the Ukrainian government cut off power because of a heavy backlog of unpaid bills.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the decision as a humanitarian mission helping to keep an estimated 3 million people out of darkness in rebel-held areas in the Luhansk region along Russia's border. The rebels are backed by Russia.

Ukraine on Monday announced it would stop supplying power because of mounting debts, and power was cut off shortly before midnight.

"Cutting the power supply to the Luhansk region is yet another step by Ukraine to push those territories away," Peskov told reporters in Moscow, saying the move "contradicts the spirit" of the peace accords that Kiev and the rebels signed in Minsk, Belarus, under Russia and European mediation in 2015.

Despite the three years of fighting in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 9,900 people, trade and supplies of water and electricity for the most part have continued across the front line. Many factories and coal mines in this industrial heartland are interdependent, and a rupture in supply lines could cause a complete industrial breakdown.

The decision on electricity "falls into the trend of Ukraine shutting off Luhansk and Donetsk, and Donetsk shutting off Ukraine and moving closer to Russia," said Alexei Makarkin at the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies. "The Minsk agreements are not working, and each side waits for the other to get too weak to stand up for its interests."

Georgiy Tuka, Ukraine's deputy minister for the occupied territories, blamed the separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions for accumulating 11 billion hryvnias ($431 million) in unpaid debt for power supplies. Tuka said Kiev was not worried about the consequences of cutting power to large swathes of land because it expected Russia to step in.

Russia has been propping up the Donetsk and Luhansk separatists since the conflict began in April 2014, although the Kremlin has denied sending troops or weapons. The war began after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea in 2014, securing its large military marine base.

Boris Gryzlov, the Russian envoy mediating talks between the separatists and the Ukrainian government, said the separatists could not pay for the Ukrainian electricity because Kiev made it impossible to wire money from those territories into the rest of Ukraine. He said Russia would start supplying power to the area.

Separatist officials, speaking on Russian state television, said power was restored after 40 minutes thanks to local sources of electricity. They said Luhansk on Tuesday was getting electricity from two power plants on separatist-controlled territory in the Donetsk region. They also listed Russia as a source of electricity, but it was unclear whether those supplies had begun.

Despite Russia's recent decisions to recognize separatist travel documents and supply electricity, Moscow has shown no inclination to annex those territories. The instability and uncertain status of Donetsk and Luhansk give Russia a degree of leverage over the Ukrainian government in Kiev, which is eager to align closer with the West.

After Russia failed to get Ukraine to recognize separatist authorities, it was left with two choices: abandon eastern Ukraine or provide even more support, Makarkin said. What the Kremlin appears to be doing is similar to how it has been supporting separatist forces in Moldova's Trans-Dniester: "On the official level, you recognize it to be Ukraine's territory but actually it isn't so."

The Ukrainian ombudsman for human rights, Valeria Lutkovska, criticized the government's decision to cut off the power in Luhansk, saying it would further alienate people living in separatist-held areas from the central government in Kiev.

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Russia steps in after Ukraine cuts power to rebel-held east - Fox News