Why do so many in Europe and the U.S. want to grant Ukraine NATO membership?
It would certainly be an odd fit. Ukraine is ranked 105 out of 180 countries on the “Corruption Perceptions Index” compiled by Transparency International. By contrast, Great Britain is ranked 20th and Norway is ranked 5th. Ukraine is closer to Russia (154) than to any Western nation.
Corruption in Ukraine is endemic and can be huge, as tens of millions of dollars of arms sent by the U.S. and Western nations have disappeared. The oligarchs in Ukraine may have lost a lot of their power in recent years, but at every level of Ukrainian society, there are kickbacks, bribes, and back-alley deals where everybody has their hands out.
That includes the undertakers, funeral directors, gravediggers, as well as police, emergency officials, and medical workers who all have their hands out and want a cut of the lucrative business of burying Ukraine’s war dead.
Because of the war, there is no shortage of people who serve the dead. And if you’re smart and have the right connections, you can make a (pardon me) killing in the dying business.
And despite the reverence for Ukraine’s war dead, they, too, have become an income stream for corrupt officials. Some funeral homes pay officials to win large contracts for transporting or burying dead troops, according to officials with knowledge of the transactions. Funeral homes overcharge councils for soldiers’ headstones and coffins and split the difference with officials, police say.
When the war eventually ends, tackling corruption will be one of Kyiv’s most important tasks. Failure to do so will hurt the economic recovery and make it harder for Ukraine to achieve its ambition of joining the European Union, which sets aspiring members specific goals on tackling graft. The years of fighting have added to the problem, particularly when corruption allegations are connected to military procurement or bribes paid to avoid recruitment into the armed forces.
“The war creates fertile ground for new corruption schemes in which criminals profit from people’s grief,” said Mykola Lysko, a senior investigator at the National Police of Ukraine.
“The war creates fertile ground for new corruption schemes in which criminals profit from people’s grief,” said Mykola Lysko, a senior investigator at the National Police of Ukraine.
One of the primary avenues of graft is in transporting dead bodies from the front to the soldier’s home. One official needed help transporting dead soldiers from the front, and he turned to a local funeral director for help.
The funeral director struck a deal with a local funeral official who would get the contract for bringing corpses back from the morgue. Then, the deputy head of funeral services would receive a share of the fees the funeral director received.
“None of us are without sin, but I believe that there should be limits… especially when young guys die in the war,” the funeral director said.
The system for burying war dead encourages corruption.
Any family that has lost a soldier can claim around 15,000 hryvnia, or $360, from the state toward funeral costs. Families taking that cash can decide where the ceremony takes place but not who conducts it, unlike in the U.S.
Instead, local authorities put the dead out to tender and funeral homes bid for the right to handle ceremonies in batches. Funeral homes sometimes pay authorities to win that business, according to three officials with knowledge of the tendering process in the eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
Often the terms of the tender are customized in a way that only one bidder can win, such as coffins being specified to a standard that only one company follows, one of these officials said.
A senior official in Zaporizhzhia’s funeral department denied there is corruption.
“Everything is open and transparent,” he said.
Trying to remain corruption-free has a price; you’re left off the gravy train. While corruption is being prosecuted at a much higher rate in Ukraine than it was before the war (and before the U.S. began throwing arms and cash at Kyiv), the stink still permeates every level of society and the government.
Ukraine has a long way to go before its reforms allow it to deserve to be joined to the European Union and NATO.
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