Despite the fact that the below scandal received little or no media coverage in Europe, the arrest of the second person in command of the National Police of Ukraine on charges of corruption and links to Russian criminal gangs was an important story in Ukraine.
Deputy Chief of Ukraine’s National Police Dmytro Tyshlek was suspended from his duties for the duration of the criminal investigation launched against him following a journalistic investigation. Mr Tyshlek has been spotted driving cars and staying in properties owned by a Russian criminal gang leader. The journalistic investigation has also found out that his wife has not gotten rid of her Russian passport.
I consider it a typical manifestation of double standards that if certain politicians call Ukraine the most corrupt state in the world, such as former President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, or Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico did recently, there is a negative reaction: the mainstream press and public opinion condemns them more than the corrupt Ukrainian officials. News about corruption in Ukraine is almost completely marginalised in the headlines of the European news outlets.
Brussels’ policy that assumes that European citizens are not interested in corruption in Ukraine and that all that matters to them as good conscientious Europeans is that financial and military support of Ukraine would continue, on moral grounds, is mistaken.
Providing moral support was indeed an extremely important element of European solidarity towards Ukraine, especially at the beginning of the war, but almost two years have passed since then, and the EU has had to reshape its own budget and revise its own rules, in order to keep Ukraine alive.
However, this is not the problem. The real and main problem is that Kyiv allows its senior officials to continue stealing as they have always done, and Brussels tolerates this. This is what pure liberalism is all about!
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