The Ukrainian NABU and SAP announced on 19 August an operation aimed at an alleged arrangement involving deputies and advanced officials from the back of Volodymyr Zelenski. Polsat News reported that Tymur Mindich and Andrij Jermak were on the fishy list. For Poland it is simply a signal: helping Kiev requires control, not political blindness.
The investigation goes back to power
From a relation Polsat News It appears that Ukrainian anti-corruption services are conducting an operation concerning an alleged criminal group linked to people from the parliament and the office of the president of Ukraine. The material besides mentions 2 names from the top shelf of the political background: businessman Tymur Mindich and erstwhile chief of the office of president Andrij Jermak.
These are charges and investigative acts, not convictions. We must keep the presumption of innocence. At the same time, you must not pretend that the case is simply a insignificant episode. If an anti-corruption investigation comes to the nearest back office of the president of the State conducting the war on Russia, the political effects are immediate.
For Poland this means the necessity of hard realism. Warsaw is to support the defence against Russian aggression, due to the fact that it is in our safety. But support must not mean closing your eyes to the pathologies of the elite in Kiev, especially erstwhile there is money in the background, trust in the West and credibility of state institutions.
The old problem is coming back harder.
Mindich and Jermak's names don't appear in vacuum. In fresh months, anti-corruption cases in Ukraine have returned 1 by one. We've written about Operation Forrest Gump in Ukraine led to the President's Office, as well as searches after which NABU was close the surroundings of Zelenski.
The Center for east Studies described in May that NABU charged Andry Jermak with money laundering, and the case afraid financing a luxury housing investment close Kiev. This background shows that the current communication is not disconnected from erstwhile tensions around Ukrainian power.
Tymur Mindicz is described in the media as a businessman formerly associated with the surroundings of Volodymyr Zelenski. If investigators indicate specified circles, the problem concerns individuals and the full strategy of influence, access to decisions and the state's resilience to corruption during the war.
War does not erase responsibility
Russia remains an aggressor. That doesn't change any investigation in Kiev. However, the Polish right should say 2 things at once: Moscow must be stopped and Ukraine must be required to have the standards that are expected of a country supported by money, weapons and political trust.
This is simply a safety element, not picking on an ally. Corruption in a warring country reduces the effectiveness of defence, destroys morale and gives Russian propaganda fuel. Each case besides makes it hard to talk to the Polish society, which bears the costs of assistance and has the right to ask for control over its use.
That is why the investigation of NABU and SAP is simply a test for Ukrainian prosecutors and for Western capitals. Politicians like to talk about values, but they endure worse from facts that spoil a simple message. Mature politics do not choose between aid and control. It connects 1 to another.
Poland must set conditions
Polish national interest requires clear language. Military and political assistance to Ukraine must go hand in hand with control, transparency and tough historical and economical policies. Kiev should hear the words of support and conditions from Warsaw: full accountability of measures, fair treatment of Polish interests, seriousness towards Polish memory and no circumvention of hard topics.
We late wrote that erstwhile Zelenski prepares PR in Poland, Kiev must hear hard conditions. Corruption only strengthens this argument. The Polish state cannot act like an unconditional sponsor of another's politics. He is to be a spokesperson for the safety of Poles.
If NABU and SAP complete the matter, it will prove that Ukrainian institutions can hit high. If the investigation is caught, the political price will be high. Poland should look at this process coolly, without rusophilia and without propaganda infatuation to Kiev. National policy is about truth, interest and work for its own citizens.
Source: Polsat News, Center for east StudiesNABU, SAP.
Source: Polsat News
