With the war in Ukraine entering its nineteenth month, Congress is debating whether to continue providing military and humanitarian aid. Ukrainian President Zelensky is in Washington today to meet with Republican leaders and urge them to stay the course, and part of the case he is making is about Ukraine’s ongoing fight to root out corruption and strengthen the rule of law. For both Ukraine and the United States, Ukraine’s war on corruption is as important as what’s happening on the battlefield.
Ukraine has struggled with a legacy of corruption since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. But it has also been fighting fiercely for more than a decade to beat back corruption and enhance the rule of law. In September alone, President Zelensky replaced the defense minister and arrested a powerful oligarch in an effort to combat corruption and prove to Kyiv’s Western allies that it is not squandering billions of dollars in aid.
Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report, “Ukraine’s Other Front: The War on Corruption,” analyzing the roots of Ukrainian corruption and the nation’s long, hard fight against it. Report author Tamar Jacoby, director of the New Ukraine Project at PPI, outlines what Ukraine needs to do and how the U.S. can help with policy that combines support and “tough love” conditionality.
“Corruption is a serious problem in Ukraine, but it’s not intrinsic nor immutable. On the contrary, today’s bad habits were learned — a toxic legacy of the Soviet era — and they can be unlearned,” said Tamar Jacoby. “The Ukrainian public is clamoring for change, and the anticorruption reform movement is finally gaining the upper hand. But it won’t succeed without international help.”
Jacoby notes that the U.S. has as much at stake in Ukraine’s war on corruption as it does in the conflict on the battlefield. She explains that a future Ukraine stuck in the post-Soviet era, controlled by vested interests, struggling to grow its economy, vulnerable to meddling external predators and blocked from joining the West would be as dangerous for America and its allies as a Russian-occupied puppet state.
Read and download the report here.
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C., with offices in Brussels, Berlin and the United Kingdom. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.
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Media Contact: Amelia Fox, afox@ppionline.org
