Member-only story
Let’s be Honest, Ukraine is Corrupt — We Should Still Help
Whenever critics of Western efforts toward assisting Ukraine discuss it, they point out that Ukraine’s historic and systemic corruption will make most of these funds useless.
I disagree.
We shouldn’t ignore them, however, especially as Ukraine was granted candidate status. With troubles in the EU making Member states comply with Rule of Law principles, no one wants more corruption in the EU.
But the presence of corruption is not prophetic in any sense of the word — nor is it necessary.
Before we get started here, I should stress the point briefly mentioned in my introduction: Ukraine is not alone in its problem with corruption in the EU. In fact, many countries in the EU face systemic corruption from Slovakia to Poland and Hungary to Greece and Italy.
Slovakia — my home country — was basically a mafia state for much of the 2010s, to the extent that a journalist investigating the former PM’s taxes was killed along with his wife. I wrote about that here.
But — sadly — Ukraine is presently worse off. The suppression of the media, police torture and abuse, discrimination against women, and other human rights abuses are problems the Ukraine public deals with regularly.
