JRL NEWSWATCH: “Four Years After Its Revolution, Ukraine Is Still a Mess; Lingering corruption and a lagging economy contributed to the country’s stalled reforms” – Bloomberg/Leonid Ragozin
“… Ukraine has improved its ranking on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index since 2013 … [but] still shares 130th place (out of 180 …) with Sierra Leone and Myanmar. Many other former Soviet republics, including … authoritarian Belarus, are far ahead … Russia is just one point behind. One of the biggest reform efforts was the creation in 2015 of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau – an investigative body targeting officials suspected of corruption. It has launched several high-profile criminal cases but encountered resistance from other law enforcement bodies …. The bureau has accused anticorruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnitsky of tampering with investigations …. It’s also taken years to establish an anticorruption court. … [That and related developments] will help unfreeze Ukraine’s $17.5 billion bailout, though the latest $1.9 billion tranche – delayed since last year on reform delays – still hasn’t been approved a…. An IMF report from 2017 describes corruption in Ukraine as “exceptionally high” and says it’s a major reason why the economy of neighboring Poland is now three times bigger than Ukraine’s. …”