Corruption newsletter

Dastardly doctors, entrepeneurial volunteers, disabled prosecutors' plots. The nature of the Zelensky elite.

Do you like tales of insatiable venality?

October has seen Ukraine’s news feed dominated by constant corruption scandals. All inter-connected by the cash-cow that is war and the struggle by Ukrainian men to escape it, they can be divided into four categories. Note the common factor for many of these stories - being officially ‘disabled’ both allows one to evade mobilization and to receive large disability pensions alongside one’s salary.

First, corruption in the MSEK (Medical Examination Commissions) which grant the coveted disability slips. Second, the revelation that not only are all the MSEK officials and their families ‘disabled’, but so are top regional judicial officials. Third, the paradoxical ‘market’ whereby hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men have been paying money to be ‘employed’ by enterprises considered ‘critical’ and hence exempted from mobilization. Finally, the classic conveyor belt of bribes which men face when mobilized by the dreaded TRC (Territorial Recruitment Centres).

Let’s have a closer look at each of these lucrative markets (adventurous investors, choose your pick), and end by linking them to Ukraine’s broader manpower and elite crises.