While the level of corruption in the country may be on the decline, it’s far from over — and pressure on journalists is only mounting.
“I ran investigations for 15 years before the war, and it was always hard and risky. But I think it’s worse for journalists now,” said Ukrainian reporter Yuri Nikolov, editor and co-founder of the anti-corruption investigative project Nashi Groshi (Our Money).
“They use different intimidation tactics to try to deter reporters and then, of course, they can always threaten to ship you off to the front lines,” he added with a rueful guffaw. For a man at the end of death threats, he remains remarkably upbeat.
Last year, Nikolov published several stories alleging graft in the Ukrainian military. The focus of his exposé was on defense procurement and the highly inflated prices of food and catering services for the country’s combat troops — he found suppliers were allowed to charge three times the average retail price for food.
Nikolov’s groundbreaking investigation on the shady procurement contracts prompted public uproar and led to the resignation of the country’s deputy defense minister. It also contributed to the resignation of then-Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov later in the year.
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In the same month Nikolov’s apartment was targeted, a video was uploaded to YouTube showing camera operators from Bihus.Info, an independent news site that also reports on corruption, partying and taking drugs at a hotel outside Kyiv on New Year.
Intercepted phone conversations between the outlet’s staffers discussing buying cannabis were also posted, accompanied by the tag line “Can you trust their investigations if they are doing them under the influence of drugs?”
“We are aware that we are protecting a democratic Ukraine, in which the strengthening of national statehood is one of the key priorities, the implementation of which should ensure, among other things, the unhindered work of the mass media and guarantee them a sufficient level of security,” he said in a statement.
It reached a crescendo during the tenure of Viktor Yanukovych, president from 2010 until his ouster in 2014, with theft, bribery, corruption in public procurement and rigged energy prices on an industrial scale.
Others who closely monitor anti-corruption efforts agree that things have improved since Yanukovych’s ouster, with progress made during the presidency of Petro Poroshenko and since Zelenskyy took office.
A 2018 report by the Kyiv-based Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting said reforms — including more transparent government procurement and the energy sector’s deregulation — had reduced grand corruption by approximately $6 billion, about 6 percent of Ukraine’s GDP.
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