The fact that the head of the secret service SBOE has to leave the field was anticipated in Ukraine. There was great dissatisfaction with the functioning of Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of President Zelensky without the right expertise.
That Zelensky also puts Iryna Venediktova aside, however, causes surprise. The head of the Public Prosecution Service leads the prosecution of Russian war crimes and has built up international authority in a short time. Venediktova, appointed in March 2020, attended congresses (last week in The Hague), gave interviews (recently in NRC) and worked closely with international bodies such as the International Criminal Court.
On Sunday evening Zelensky announced that the two top officials be removed from office. They haven’t been fired (yet) emphasized an employee Monday morning. Bakanov and Venediktova have been suspended for the time being, pending an investigation into their functioning. Both will be succeeded by their deputy director for the time being.
According to Ukrainian media, Venediktova’s suspension is due to corruption
The immediate cause of the suspension seems serious enough. More than sixty employees of the Public Prosecution Service and SBOE are working from Russia-occupied territory in Ukraine against their own country, Zelensky said in a speech. They pass on classified information to the Russian secret service or cooperate with it in other ways. An investigation into 651 cases of possible betrayal and collaboration is currently underway. It is now being investigated to what extent this can be attributed to Bakanov and Venediktova.
Reckless personnel policy
But the suspensions also fit a pattern. Since taking office in 2019, Zelensky has fired one government official after another, even though some of them had just started their positions. Within a year of taking office, he fired political adviser and spin doctor Andri Bohdan – for no apparent reason. “I don’t know what you’re doing right or wrong, but you evoke a huge irritation in me,” Bohdan was told.
Venediktova’s predecessor as Attorney General, Ruslan Rjabospapka, survived only six months at the top of the Ukrainian Public Prosecution Service. Ryaboshapka said he had to resign because he refused to prosecute former President Petro Poroshenko. The heads of the tax authorities, customs and national bank also had to clear the field. In addition, the entire cabinet fell within a year, after Prime Minister Oleksi Honcharuk was discredited by a secretly recorded recording of a meeting in which the Prime Minister spoke disparagingly about Zelensky’s understanding of economics. Just two weeks ago, Zelensky fired five ambassadors, including the controversial ambassador to Berlin, Andri Melnyk.
Read also about Zelensky’s early years
The turnover of directors was so great that Zelensky’s reform agenda was delayed. The president himself complained of “administrative anemia”. Western allies, however, were concerned about his reckless personnel policy. When Zelensky had the Public Prosecution Service (then led by Ryaboshapka) reformed, the six Ukrainian prosecutors who were investigating the MH17 crash (in collaboration with the Netherlands, among others) also lost their jobs. The Dutch Public Prosecution Service had to move heaven and earth to keep the Ukrainian prosecutor Oleh Peresada for the so-called Joint Investigation Team (JIT) – if not as an officer, then as an ‘advisor’ to the Public Prosecution Service.
Russian infiltration
That Ukrainian government officials are collaborating with Moscow is also less strange than it seems at first glance. In recent years, the Kremlin has recruited officials within the Ukrainian government apparatus.
At the local level, the Russian infiltration seems to have paid off. In April, Zelensky fired two generals from the Ukrainian security service SBU for treason. One of them, Serhi Kryvoetsjko, was the head of the Kherson branch, the southern city that fell to the Russians without a fight. “We messed up,” Zelensky’s adviser Oleksi Arestovych said of Kherson’s fall at the time: “The biggest question is where there was incompetence and where was betrayal.”
Ukrainian media and analysts give several lectures about shoving Venediktova aside.
Since her appointment in March 2020, she has been loyal to Zelensky, for example by opening cases against his political enemy Poroshenko. Corruption cases against suspects from Zelensky’s entourage, on the other hand, came to nothing because of her. According to The Kyiv Independent blocked Venediktova two bribery cases against Oleh Tatarov, Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff, by replacing prosecutors and transferring the case from the Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) to Bakanov’s SBU, where he disappeared in a drawer. Venediktova was able to do this because the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Corruption (SAPO) has not had a director for two years. However, because of its candidate for membership, the EU is demanding that SAPO finally regain independent leadership. Also read this interview with Iryna Venediktova
Without mentioning the EU, Zelensky referred in Sunday’s speech to the need for capable directors of the two main anti-corruption institutions (NABU and SAPO). “A government agency can only function fully with an effective leader.” To placate the EU, Venediktova may have to leave. An anonymous source of the Ukraine Pravda mentions another reason: President Zelensky is said to have developed resentment because the mediagenic Attorney General attracts so much international attention.