Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took fright last week — as well he might.
Within a day of signing a law that stripped two key anti-corruption agencies — the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) — of their independence, he climbed down in the face of mass protests. The demonstrations were the first to be mounted since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.
Initially, it appeared the Ukrainian leader was set to brazen it out, determined to shrug off demonstrators that included war veterans and active-duty soldiers alongside civilians. But the rallies ballooned across the country and public outrage only intensified, with frontline soldiers also denouncing the law on social media.
Then, prominent civil society activists let rip too: Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center and currently the subject of a government probe that his supporters argue is based on trumped-up allegations, warned: “Zelenskyy’s prosecutor general will stop investigations against all the president’s friends.”
Some also cautioned that the agitation could spark a popular uprising like the one that toppled then-President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. “We are now in the face of the most dangerous development in all the years since Maidan,” wrote Sevgil Musayeva, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper. And like others, she hazarded that Zelenskyy’s powerful Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak was behind the move, amid signs that NABU is preparing cases against presidential insiders.
Eventually, with public uproar mounting, Ukraine’s president bowed to the pressure and agreed to restore the independence of the agencies — a new law turning back the clock is meant to be voted on Thursday. But why did he fail to realize the likelihood of such a ferocious reaction in the first place? Is it simply the arrogance of power or is it a sense of impunity?
Among the insiders currently under investigation are former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov and former Deputy Head of the Office of the President Rostyslav Shurma. Shurma was dismissed last year, after it emerged his brother was receiving green subsidies from the Ukrainian government for solar plants operating in Russian-occupied Donbas. Coincidentally, Shurma’s Munich home was raided by NABU investigators and German police in mid-July.
“It is critical not to lose the unity. To listen to people, to have dialogue, and so on,” Zelenskyy told reporters at a press briefing on Friday, explaining his about-face and consequent decision to restore the independence of the agencies in question.
Established in 2015, both NABU and SAP came into being at the insistence of the EU and other international partners. And those partners — especially the Europeans — played a major role in cajoling Zelenskyy to back off. While they publicly held their tongues about other democratic backsliding in Ukraine, EU officials, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, weren’t prepared to keep schtum on this one, openly expressing their disapproval and “concerns.”
Privately, their language was even more abrasive. Prominent Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, who had dinner with two EU envoys the night the controversial law was signed, told POLITICO that Europe’s leaders didn’t mince their words with Zelenskyy in phone calls and private texts. Among other things, the Ukrainian leader was warned there would “be consequences for Ukraine’s EU accession process” unless he backtracked, the envoys told her — though the warnings stopped short of threatening to suspend war funding.
And it seems Zelenskyy himself conceded that the EU’s complaints were instrumental in persuading him. “We want to be part of Europe. No one is willing to take any risks. I have reassured all our partners,” he told reporters.
So far so good.
But why target NABU and SAP in the first place? Particularly when opinion polls have consistently shown that even in wartime, Ukrainians rank corruption as the country’s main domestic problem. Wasn’t that asking for trouble?
For example, in a nationwide survey last year, corruption was seen as a bigger threat to Ukraine’s development as a modern democracy than Russia’s invasion by 51 to 46 percent. Other polls have turned up similar findings. And any major scams that have emerged, especially in connection with defense procurement, have provoked powerful public backlashes.
Still, for whatever reason, Zelenskyy and Yermak “clearly underestimated the possible reaction of society and Ukraine’s partners,” Klympush-Tsintsadze said. However, some civil society leaders think targeting the agencies is a sign that Zelenskyy and his clan-like group of aides are starting to panic about his poor polling numbers. As it stands, his chances of winning the next election, when it is eventually held, appear remote, with former armed forces commander General Valery Zaluzhny, who Zelenskyy fired after clashing over war strategy, seen as most likely to get elected.
According to Adrian Karatnycky, author of “Battleground Ukraine” and a former president of the Freedom House NGO, the move on NABU and SAP is an example of Zelenskyy’s overreach and could well guarantee he’ll be a one-term president. “It is the second nail in the coffin after the Zaluzhny firing,” he said.
It is true that as Zelenskyy’s popularity declines, he and his team have reflexively sought to tighten their grip on power, while undercutting other institutions and intimidating critics — including sanctioning his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, in a move that would prevent the former president from running in a presidential election. Meanwhile, many are growing suspicious that some of the spy hunts mounted in search of traitors and Russian collaborators might be political witch-hunts in disguise, aimed at silencing opponents and chilling criticism.
The fear is that Zelenskyy and his team will eventually try to run a “managed” election rather than a free one. But that will be hard to pull off with such a vibrant civil society, and with Ukrainians determined that after all their wartime sacrifices, they will get the kind of country they want — one that isn’t ensnared by corruption.
The street protests in Ukraine have put Zelenskyy on notice, and they’re an indication that patience is wearing thin.
