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ukrainian officials claim that they fight corruption as hard as the ukrainian military does against the russian invaders on the front lines. but western governments, including the united states, do not think so. they say that kyiv is not doing enough to fight corruption. the american publication washington post writes about this, in particular. my name is vlasta lazur, this is svoboda live. the ukrainian authorities are doing enough or not enough to eradicate illegal enrichment and bribery and all that we call corruption. the last meeting between president volodymyr zelenskyi and us secretary of state anthony blinken was tense. the ukrainian leader thanked washington for the military assistance, but looked disappointed. he did not like that the american official focused on corruption, the washington post writes. referring to unnamed

interlocutors familiar with the content of the conversation. the content of the conversation between zelenskyi and blinkin. i will remind, during the last visit to kyiv, blinkin said that victory in the war against corruption will not allow ukraine to become like russia. and it seems that kyiv just didn't like it. the article of the washington post talks about high-profile cases of recent times, such as accusations of illegal enrichment against the former deputy head of the president's office andriy smirnov or the dismissal of ilya vityuk, i.e. sbu gardener, whose wife bought a luxury apartment for 500,000 dollars. ukrainian officials say that precisely these cases are proof of successful efforts in the fight against bribery, but do they believe it in the west? this is what the washington post writes. western capitals, however, are not so sure of this. billions are at stake in ukraine's fight against corruption, not only the country's own tax money, but also western military and economic aid. high-ranking ukrainian officials complain. that

americans and europeans often use the stereotype of a corrupt ukraine as an excuse for delaying or opposing vital aid, and that this accusation is not only a cliché but also evidence of hypocrisy in capitals with their own problems corruption so, ukrainian officials tell western journalists that they are fighting corruption, all these accusations are just clichés and stereotypes, but let's look at specific stories that took place during the last week, well... for example, yesterday to the verkhovna rada at the invitation of the people's deputies, the prosecutor general was supposed to come, and once, by the way, the deputy from the servant of the people, andriy kostin. the deputies demanded that he explain the origin of the fortune of the girlfriend of his deputy dmytro verbytskyi, who acquired wealth during verbytskyi's tenure cars, real estate and a beauty salon, however, judging by her official income, khrystyna ilnytska did not have the money for this. but prosecutor general kostin did not come to the parliament. instead of himself, he sent a letter of explanation, saying, let's wait.

the results of an official investigation, and i will add here, such an investigation can last for months, or even years. by the way, we contacted kostin for a comment, but he did not respond, the day before, closer to night , the prosecutor general broke his silence on the air of the rada state tv channel. he, turn attention, read his comment regarding the potential removal of verbytskyi from his post. there were also questions about his possible suspension. i would like to point out that the law on the prosecutor's office does not... provides for the possibility of suspending the prosecutor from performing his duties at the stage of the official investigation, for me the most important thing is to establish the truth and make the most balanced and impartial decision. i had conversations with mr. verbytskyi, he explained to me his arguments and explanations regarding the situation. by the way, he leads a number of high-profile criminal proceedings, the accused, who are very interested in his removal and all the more released. the situation is extremely complicated, we have to... understand all the details to

get answers to all the questions. at the moment, i am waiting for the results of the official investigation, maybe by that time we will have the results of the check on the zk. in his in a letter addressed to the chairman of the verkhovna rada today, i drew attention to precisely these circumstances, offering to postpone the discussion of this situation until the results of the investigations are received, and only then it will be possible make some decisions. this was kostin's comment, but in the meantime, khrystyna ilnytska herself wrote a letter to the editors of radio svoboda, in which she stated that the deputy prosecutor general has nothing to do with her personal finances, she called the information in the investigation about herself false, she says that she acquired all the property . herself, but did not provide documentary confirmation of her words. well, returning to prosecutor general kostin, he is not the only top official who refuses to explain something to the parliament, and therefore to society. example, today , the head of nabu, semyon krivonos, was supposed to attend the meeting of the anti-corruption committee of the verkhovna rada. among

other things, he was expected to report on the progress of the naboo leak investigation. at the end of may, i will remind, it became known about a leak, or simply a leak of information in a high-profile criminal case. to major construction. the information was leaked not to anyone, but to the consultant of the president's office, yury golyk, the curator of the great construction, although he himself prefers to call himself an ideologue rather than a curator. this is the first and currently the only case when the head of the anti-corruption body refuses to take part in the meeting of the anti-corruption committee and answer questions, the head of the committee, anastasia radina, said today. you see an empty space now, colleagues, you see a sign. this morning we learned from the media that it appears naboo believes it does not have to tell the naboo leak investigation committee. i would be very interested to understand, and how it happened in general, that the information about

the judicial official investigation was known to the person involved in the investigation even before the investigation was opened. how did it happen? i would also be interested to hear how the director of the anti-corruption bureau would convince us that we should trust and humbly wait for the results of the investigation in a situation where the parties involved knew about the start of the investigation before it began, what an effective pre-trial investigation in such a situation can be about. all these examples, and this is actually not all, we will mention others today, but all of them together make us ask questions. and political will to fight corruption? and the people and bodies that are supposed to fight corruption did not become part of this same corruption, but is the president interested in eradicating such a phenomenon as corruption, at least in his own environment, that is what we will talk about now, serhii demchenko joins our broadcast, people's deputy from the servant of the people, and also yaroslav yurchyshyn, people's deputy from

the voice faction, gentlemen, i welcome you, good afternoon, i have a general question for you two, and what is evidenced by the fact that the head of nabu didn't come to report today? in front of the deputies, serhii, what do you think? in my opinion, if there were no good reasons, at least something, this shows disrespect on the part of the relevant official to the institution of the verkhovna rada. and what is the most? and once again, and what is the most, and what, what is the most, it is borderline bordering on the fact that a person admits his guilt, guilt in the corresponding actions, which. about which she was called, yaroslav, and what do you say, we don’t hear you, yes, we hear, ugh, i can’t help but agree with sergey, if a person who performs certain authority, and cannot publicly

argue his position, despite the fact that i was at the committee meeting, the issue was the life of measures, and the minimization... of cases of the possibility of leaking information about the investigation of high-profile cases and ultimately any cases of the national anti-corruption bureau, in fact, mr. semyon kryvonos did not communicate with the head of the committee that we need additional time there, let's postpone the meeting, did he not provide any explanations, he simply went into the public sphere, on social media and... said, i do not consider it appropriate to appear before the committee, i was previously the deputy chairman of the committee on anti-corruption policy, and indeed this is a precedent, this is a precedent, so this is a precedent, and the second thing you said, serhiy said that at the very least, this indicates

disrespect for the parliament, and at most that semyon kryvonos himself can thus be guilty of the fact that he is being blamed in the nabu shower, look, anastasia radina today... said that kryvonos planned to come to the last, but he refused, when already a journalistic investigation of the ukrainian truth appeared, and it says that in april they still received permission to search the head of... gas oleksiy chernyshov, another player of the president's team, but no one followed this decision and the up claims referring to his sources that the search did not take place again due to the influence of the director of nabu kryvonos, he denies this, but do you accept that, relatively speaking, the leaks in nabu are what we saw in the great construction case, it is not the only history, and the leak could also have occurred in interests, in the interests of the head of naftogaz, serhiy. you know, it is difficult to guess here in whose interests this or that event took place,

the only thing i can say, affirmatively, is that the issue of corruption, i believe that during the war they become even more acute, and it cannot be said that these issues are a result of the war should be leveled or silenced in some way , on the contrary, in my opinion, in my opinion, that during the war, those who engage in corruption are a scum over there, which should be, well, almost destroyed by means of legal, of course, instruments, and there must be a very quick response from the relevant authorities that control, monitor that these shameful incidents do not occur, and which, which authorities should respond here, there is no higher authority than nabu, well, there is no higher authority than nabu, and we have the office of the prosecutor general...

the prosecutor general for today, and if this person, who is, by the way, under report to the verkhovna rada, this is directly provided for by the constitution, the norms of the constitution of ukraine, cannot cope with this situation... in an understandable way for parliamentarians, then parliamentarians should raise questions about the consequences of such inaction or impossibility of helplessness on the part of the prosecutor general. we will now go to the general prosecutor, i also wanted to clarify about the chernyshov case, where allegedly nabu also did not start conducting searches. look, there's still ukrainian truth, yaroslav, that's a question for you. he writes that during the investigation, chernyshov, allegedly the head of naftogaz even... met with krivonos, and he says that he met with him,

but the investigation was not discussed, now we are showing his photo, this is mr. chernyshov, the head of the oil and gas company. yaroslav, is it generally normal when people who are under investigation meet with the head of this investigative body. the head of the investigative body, who must demonstrate impartiality, should refuse such meetings. unequivocally, since this will definitely lead to the opinion that the speed of the investigation and these cases is not related to these meetings, if such a meeting took place, it was recorded by journalists, then in principle, well, we had, for example, a case when ms. tanasiuk, on that time the head of the higher anti-corruption court met. with one of the persons involved in the investigations and then apologized, clearly

explaining that she is not a judge in this case, but she will not do so in the future, because it poses a threat to the entire structure. kryvonas did not apologize, he simply did not come to the committee meeting today. in fact, instead of using the venue of the committee to clearly explain, the meeting was held, but it was not related to the actual investigation. and in the future i will avoid such meetings, which would be quite logical, right? well, in principle, there is a person may make a mistake, a person may not be aware of the directions, we understand that mr. krivonos, in principle, has been in charge of the national anti-corruption bureau for a short period of time, but this opportunity was not used, instead, once again, we see, well, the silencing of a situation that definitely needs a public response , then tell me, please, from what you both... have voiced here, does it make sense after such stories in principle to believe naboo, is there any reason to doubt that

naboo is independent, or is there any reason to believe that naboo itself, which is supposed to investigate corruption, is drowning in corruption? yaroslav? it is impossible to spread all the activities of only the head of the nabu to the entire structure, and we have cases, why not, why not, and what about this saying? the fish rots from the head and everything else, and there is a saying, activity, activity, and, that is , you and i are witnesses in a lot of cases where there are up to... quite high figures, in fact , very good work by both detectives and managers groups of detectives, and therefore everyone must be personally responsible, and in this case, if the fish rots from the head, then the claims must be specifically to the head, so actually today the next meeting of the committee is on the basis of the national anti-corruption bureau, well, if the mountain does not come to

mohammed, then mohammed will come to the mountain, but is there now a question for mr. crooked nose? quite reasonable, and the fact that he avoids the possibility of answering these questions rather confirms that these questions do have grounds. well, i will remind you that naboo is that, that reform and that institution that ukraine should be proud of after the revolution of dignity and construction in general, the entire anti-corruption infrastructure. another matter, you have already partially mentioned it, sergey, which, by the way, is also being investigated by nabu, is the alleged illegal enrichment. deputy andrii kostin, kostin refused to come to you in the committee, what do you think, serhiy, why, what, what happened, come not to the committee, but to the parliament, i’m sorry, yes, to the parliament, eh, what happened, well, for sure , the answer he gave, he publicly announced that, what i perceived, that the person

considered it inappropriate to appear in parliament today, because nothing but that... there is an official investigation, he cannot add, and according to the consequences of the official investigation, he will report this information in the way he deems necessary. and you think that the person, and you think that the person, as you call andrii kostin, had the right to act like that? well, a person, i call myself, and i can call you, it is not necessary, but it is a natural person, it is normal, let it be more correct to be the general prosecutor in this case. i take a negative view in this case that the prosecutor general did not appear before of the verkhovna rada at its invitation in this case, in this case there were no direct legal grounds to ignore this invitation, and this ignoring, even if you do not have other additional information, you must appear at the request of the verkhovna rada, which i

repeat, according to the norms of the constitution, i follow your work, and what you have to report, but let's be honest, but let's be honest, serhii, do you really follow the work of the prosecutor general, the prosecutor general's office? frankly, frankly follow, moreover, it is probably to at some time, it may be current, somewhere my desire is to become the attorney general one day, so i am personally interested in this direction to feel what is happening there, and for the information, or as far as i follow, i can s... say that the attorney general was going to to the verkhovna rada on insider information, moreover, he had a report prepared for the verkhovna rada on the issues for which he was summoned to the verkhovna rada, but at the last moment it was decided that the prosecutor general would not go to the verkhovna rada, for what reasons , well, except those he mentioned in his letter, we

can only guess, yaroslav, and how is it possible that in a parliamentary-presidential republic the prosecutor ignores the parliament? in fact, in a parliamentary-presidential republic, where all the power is in the hands of the president's office, and here we can talk about several components of this problem, and the first is the monopoly right to the majority, which is granted as if by society, and there are very few colleagues from the mano of the majority, since serhiy can speak critically about... what the majority of prosecutors are actually in favor of at the request of the president, well, he allows himself not to come, not to report, there are really a lot of questions regarding the activities of the prosecutor's office, not only regarding the property itself, the deputy and his partner, but another point is

a certain impunity that currently prevails. but because the verkhovna rada does not press those things that are even accepted, in this case, and 216 deputies summoned the prosecutor, the prosecutor general for a certain time, there were no appeals regarding the expediency of the visit, explanation of the situation, etc., there was a very clear fixation, which was forwarded properly to the general... prosecutor, well, there is every reason to think that the actual cool curator of the law enforcement system in the office simply did not allow mr. pustin to come and... actually answer adequately in an adult manner to the questions that are, oleg tatarov, we have oleg tatarov can give instructions to the general prosecutor to go to the parliament or not,

everything is so serious, really oleg tatarov can do a lot with us, and this is not within the limits of the law in any way, this is a personal matter of those heads of law enforcement and structures that work. but well, the fact remains the fact that it is as an adviser, deputy head of the president's office, he is responsible for law enforcement and anti-corruption, so he allows himself to regulate who, where and where he actually goes, whether mr. tatarov's role was in ensuring that mr. krivonosny appeared on the committee, well, me too there are no facts, there are only assumptions, but i think there were also consultations on this... conclusion with mr. tatarov. sergey, do you also think that all heads of law enforcement agencies consult with tatarov before coming to the parliament or not parliament session? well, probably, this

statement can also be asserted that they all consult with me, before going somewhere, somewhere, and it will probably not be a worse consultation, if it's a bit of a joke. but the issue with the office of the president, about which he said. colleague, i would still perceive within the limits of the law and reason exactly, use exactly these norms, what is the office of the president, it is an auxiliary body for the president, and accordingly, if the office of the president does something, it is not his personal initiative, they carry out the or other decision of the president, if, for example, mr. yermak announces that our country is waiting for negotiations at the next... summit with russia, then this is not mr. yermak's decision, he is announcing the president's decision, it is clear that what is the point here,

what is the point here kostin about the fact that when we say that someone gives instructions from the office of the president, if this is so, then these are not instructions from the office of the president, these are instructions from the president, this is an auxiliary body of the president himself, if this statement is true, we have grounds. in order for the president to advise kostyna not to talk about him to go to the parliament and not report on his deputy, i think, i think, at least, it was the choice of mr. kostin, he was not limited to go or not to go to the parliament, he had the duty to fulfill the demand of the parliament with to appear at its plenary meeting, and further it is his personal decision, in the end it was, he does not have the constitution in any way, i say once again, that he has to get approval. to come to the parliament, or to him, that is, he violated his duty, it was his duty, he violated it, i understood you correctly, he was obligated to come to the parliament, he was obliged to come to the parliament, then he simply wiped his feet

in the parliament, once again, he simply wiped his feet in the parliament, if he did not come, at least he showed disrespect to the parliament, if without reason, for today i i don't see that there is any reason not to come to the parliament when he demanded this case, what is the point of a monomajority then? if you voted for your own deputy, because he was a servant of the people, and now you cannot control him and cannot influence him when he violates his responsibilities, the meaning, probably in the whole parliament in this case, not the majority of the prosecutor general, nor the general for the prosecutor general kostin, the majority voted , not only the deputies from the servant of the people faction, i don't remember how they voted. colleague, it seems to me that yaroslav did not vote, the whole vote there did not vote, yes, i did not, i do not remember this situation, but the majority in the hall,

including those from other factions, voted for the general prosecutor, and again, in order for us to come to a conclusion, we have to consider it in the house of parliament, and that there should be consideration of this issue not only at the meeting of the faction of the servant of the people party, other factions. and in general, all factions in the parliament must make decisions regarding the proper or improper behavior of the relevant official , which could be the decision for kostin, what could be the decision of serhii for the for depends on what he justifies his absence from the parliament, well, he already said that he is waiting for an official investigation, it can last a very long time, and while he does not want to suspend his deputy from his position and and i understand that the origin of his wealth also does not cause him any worries or any reputational fears of parla.

in this case, the parliament could probably make a decision regarding mr. kostyan in terms of how significant is this violation in order to raise the question of his further tenure in the relevant position, how significant is this violation, yaroslav? in fact, more significant will be the violations for which mr. kostyan was summoned, will there be an explanation or? there will be adequate activity, because, of course, attendance at the meeting parliament, and this is not a reason for dismissal there, because in the end, it is possible to somehow explain and justify, but for this you definitely have to come, at the same time , as far as i know, mr. kostoi has not appeared on the specialized committee since the moment of his appointment, despite the fact that he was repeatedly invited, that is, there is such a system.

representatives of the authorities, and i would still like to emphasize that it is the parliament that is responsible now, especially in this situation, to show that parliamentary control should act, and not just exist, but the responsibility for the majority is, i apologize, more so, because the approval of the appointment of the prosecutor general took place as follows: the president proposes according to the constitution, then it was discussed at... the majority faction and under the conditions of the support of the majority faction, of course, it is brought into the hall, then each deputy is determined personally and so can non-appearance be grounds for dismissal? i don't think so, at most it's just attention, some disciplinary sanctions, but in relation to the prosecutor general, well, if the legislation does not give us such powers, if there is no answer to the more fundamental question, and how effectively ukraine is now... forming

an evidence base in the international, future international tribunal regarding russia, how effectively sexual crimes are being investigated there, again committed by the occupiers, how effectively we are now countering such a negative phenomenon , as corruption, because yes, actually, actually, regarding, regarding the latter, i will return to the topic, he should have come and reported how he personally effectively counteracts such a phenomenon as corruption all? in the environment, mr. kostin, from what i understood, is waiting for some effective actions from law enforcement agencies, he does not want to do anything himself. gentlemen, there is another investigation this week that came out, it is already from our colleagues, journalists of the investigation of info, and it concerns yet another law enforcement agency, we have a lot of law enforcement agencies, for example, the deputy director of the state bureau of investigation, oleksandr udovichenko, his name is, i don't know if this last name means anything to you, journalists found out that he lives in an apartment worth about 900

thousands of dollars one of the most elite housing complexes in kyiv, now we are showing his photo, yasna rich's declaration does not contain all of this, and we asked the sbi for a comment, the sbi refused us, but let's look at a fragment of this investigation and then we will talk. this is one of the most pathetic kyiv residential complexes. regent hill is located on the cave hills, and apartments here year after year are included in the ratings of the most expensive in the capital. rent here reaches 600 thousand uah per month, purchase 250 million uah. and this is a toyota camry with numbers cover. she leaves the underground parking lot of the residential complex and heads to the state bureau of investigation. the gate for the car is raised in advance, the security comes out to meet. all these honors, according to our data, were for...

the deputy director of the state bureau of investigation, as well as the head of the main investigative department oleksandr udovichenko. and alexander knows how to surprise. he is 35 years old and already the second person in the dbr. the rank of colonel of the dbr, the so-called new face, but with old habits. gentlemen, who should draw what conclusions after this story? i have not seen the statement from the sbi, i don't know if they are determined to remove this gentleman from his official duties. until the investigators and the law enforcement officers put an end to it, but who should draw political conclusions from this story in advance? sergey? well, i, i honestly would have expected some kind of public statement without directly from this employee that is in question in this story, and probably some kind of response from his management on this, and again, appropriate.