Do you wish to obtain disability status? You can easily do so in Ukraine.
But jokes aside!
Following investigative journalist revealed that in Khmelnytskyi Region in Western Ukraine some 50 prosecutors, including their boss, had illegally obtained disability certificates to avoid being called up for military service, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin submitted his resignation. This was following a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council on 22 October convened by President Zelenskyy to address this clearly unethical situation.
As part of the investigation into the same case, law enforcement officers exposed the head of the Medical and Social Assessment Centre in Khmelnytskyi Region, and her son, an official at the Regional Pension Fund, who provided the prosecutors with medical documents. An investigation into their unlawful enrichment has been launched. In addition, special working groups have been formed in accordance with a new presidential decree. The document recommends the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Security Service of Ukraine, the State Bureau of Investigation, the National Police and the National Anticorruption Bureau submit reports within a month on measures taken to identify violations in the process of establishing disability for officials. Following such inspections, these bodies are to make decisions on staffing. It is also recommended that the Ukrainian Parliament, together with the Health Ministry, develop a draft law on reforming the medical and social assessment system.
This case is particularly scandalous, as public servants have committed an abuse of power, moreover, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are fighting for survival on the front line each day and when the issue of lowering the age of conscription has been raised. In the meantime, as is well known, millions of Ukrainian citizens have already left the country fleeing the war, and most of them do not intend to return to Ukraine once the war is over.
’There needs to be not just clear legislative and organisational changes, but also personal accountability. That includes political accountability.’, Kostin said before his resignation.
These words raise a question: in this particular case, is it sufficient to mention the responsibility of Prosecutor General Kostin or would it be necessary to see the issue in a broader context?
As President Zelenskyy tries to sell his Victory Plan to Western supporters with more or less success, his country continues to live in conditions of total corruption, which is not surprising, since it is a well-known fact that wars do not reduce the number of those who seek to profit at the expense of others or buy themselves advantages with money, but, on the contrary, multiply it. Prosecutors in Khmelnytskyi Region, including their boss, did not want to go to the front, so they bought a medical certificate that helped them to avoid conscription. All this, allegedly, went unnoticed: there were no objections to the scheme on behalf of the local military command, representatives of the MoD. The problem was not raised either by the Prosecutor General’s Office or the President’s Office in Kyiv. Absolutely no one had any problems with this practice in Khmelnytskyi Region.
Once again, investigative journalists were needed to uncover the truth.
After the truth became known, Zelenskyy summoned a special committee and only after that General Prosecutor of Ukraine submitted his resignation. Ukrainian officials are trying to play the usual sneaky game: they pretend that it was just a one-time problem and the case itself is insignificant, as if it were a simple shoplifting. But, doing so, trust in the state and the authorities has been lost, which is a very serious problem.
Next time, which regional or central body in Kyiv will be found guilty in manipulating the system? As long as political leadership in Ukraine continues to turn a blind eye on state officials’ dirty little tricks and neglect the need of accountability at all levels, there will always be unethical people who try to abuse power and secure themselves extra rights.
Many people still believe that President Zelenskyy is not responsible for all this, but this view is becoming increasingly unpopular as such a permissive approach is no longer seems to be acceptable to both patriotic Ukrainians and Ukraine’s Western supporters.
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