No. of Recommendations: 10
A few days ago, I called Oleksandr Abakumov, a senior detective at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. I wanted to ask him about Operation Midas, his investigation into a kickback scheme in his country’s energy industry. I didn’t intend to write about him. But as we were speaking, I got interested in his background, and his motivations. As I eventually wrote in the Atlantic, I was struck by the surprising contrast between people like him—the Ukrainian civil servants and civil-society activists who have been demanding transparency from their leaders for two decades—and the American and Russian negotiators who met last week in Moscow, perhaps to decide Ukraine’s fate.
Remember, the civic reform movement in Ukraine, starting with the Orange Revolution in 2004-5, peaking during the Maidan revolution of 2014 and continuing into the present, has always had two goals: A sovereign Ukraine, independent from Russia, and a transparent Ukraine, free from Russian-style corruption. This same civic reform movement is now the backbone of the Ukrainian army and the drone industry, but still fights for influence in the civil service. Ukrainian reformers have always had plenty of opponents inside the country as well as in Russia. Nevertheless the Ukrainian state has slowly transformed itself.
Foreign coverage of “Operation Midas” often relies on the passive voice, as if the scandal has a will of its own (“Scandal Consumes Top Aide”). But people such as Abakumov, who is a part of the Ukrainian state, worked to make the scandal public. They have interrogated cabinet ministers, published surveillance recordings, searched apartments. The Ukrainian Parliament has dismissed two ministers. Tymur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky, has fled the country. Late last month, the president’s closest adviser, Andriy Yermak, resigned following a search of his apartment. All of this means that the political system is healthy, operating according to the law.
I asked Abakumov if he feared that his investigation could harm the war effort. On the contrary: “Corruption equals Russia,” he told me. If Ukraine tolerates corruption, “this is the way we lose, during the war, during negotiations, during rebuilding Ukraine.” Daria Kaleniuk, one of Ukraine’s most prominent anti-corruption activists, also told me that with this investigation, “we have the chance to save the country and make it stronger.”
Contrast their motivations with those of Steve Witkoff (a real estate developer), Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law and the owner of an investment company that received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia) and their Russian counterpart, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund:
Last month, The Wall Street Journal revealed that these three businessmen met in Miami Beach in October to discuss not just Ukraine but also future Russian-American business deals. Russian businessmen who are known to be close to Putin have been “dangling multibillion-dollar rare-earth and energy deals” in front of American companies, the Journal explained, to “reshape the economic map of Europe—while driving a wedge between America and its traditional allies.” Some of the companies have connections with Donald Trump’s family.
Witkoff and Kushner are not taking kickbacks on government contracts, as some Ukrainian officials are now accused of doing. The corruption they represent is more profound: They are using the tools of the American state in a manner that happens to benefit their friends and business partners, even while they do terrible damage to American allies, American alliances, and America’s reputation. This is a conflict of interest on a grand scale, with no real precedent in modern American foreign policy
Anne Applebaum
