Corruption in Ukraine is often described as the legacy of the Soviet Union, but the phrase is used so frequently that its precise meaning is sometimes lost. Corruption is not merely the survival of a few informal habits carried over from a different age.
It is the continuation of a political culture created by the Soviet state, in which institutions were deliberately politicised in order to enforce ideological conformity.
In such a system, courts, police, ministries, and even commercial enterprises served political ends rather than impartial ones. The problem has therefore proved far more enduring than a matter of weak laws or insufficient oversight.
If a state inherits institutions designed to follow political signals rather than legal ones, it follows that building more institutions without changing their political culture will reproduce the same errors.
The Soviet administrative model never expected institutions to act independently. Their function was to implement the Party’s will, whether in economic management, criminal justice, or foreign trade. Legal norms were declaratory; political consensus was decisive. Officials internalised the view that power flowed through informal networks rather than transparent rules.
Patronage and influence were the practical tools of career progression.
I have spent sufficient time working across the former Soviet space to observe that these patterns survived the collapse of the USSR with extraordinary resilience. They permeated the political and business environments of Russia and Ukraine alike throughout the 1990s and well into the present day.
A system built to follow power
Ukraine’s early independence did not bring about a decisive rupture with these practices. Political parties often did not emerge as ideological movements but as vehicles for business interests. Parliamentary blocs were built around personalities and financial sponsors.
Public institutions inherited bureaucratic structures that had never been expected to act impartially and were therefore unprepared to behave in this way when independence arrived.
When a ministry or agency has never been trained to view itself as a neutral executor of public law, inserting additional oversight mechanisms may increase the number of actors within the system without changing the underlying incentives. Influence merely finds new channels through which to flow.
My experience in Bosnia and Herzegovina, following the Dayton Peace Agreement, reinforces this lesson.
There, an elaborate network of institutions was created at the insistence of international actors who aimed to engineer balance, accountability, and multiparty co-operation. In practice, these institutions became battlegrounds for political contestation.
Rather than insulating state bodies from political interference, external pressure led to the multiplication of agencies whose loyalties were still defined by their political sponsors.
The international demand for institutional complexity did not change the political culture; it simply created more platforms onto which that culture could project itself. Bosnia remains a cautionary tale: without transforming political expectations of state institutions, structural reforms cannot achieve their intended purpose.
When reforms multiply faster than trust
The same danger exists in Ukraine today. The United States and the European Union have made anti-corruption conditionality central to their support for Ukraine. This has driven the creation of new investigative bodies, specialised prosecutors, and oversight agencies. Some of these institutions have done valuable work and have won public trust.
Nevertheless, the underlying assumption that corruption can be extinguished by generating new structures risks repeating the mistakes observed elsewhere. If these organisations are not insulated from political interference, from the executive and from foreign pressures alike, they will come to emulate the very institutions they are meant to restrain.
The difficulty lies not in the intention, which is laudable, but in the belief that independence is achieved simply by altering statutory language or appointing reform-minded leaders.
Independence is a cultural attribute as much as a legal one. An institution becomes impartial when its staff learn, over time, that they are expected to apply rules consistently, transparently, and without fear of political repercussion.
This is a generational process, not an administrative one. Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies will only succeed if they develop internal cultures that prize legal certainty over political expediency. They must learn to resist the temptation, common throughout the region, to interpret political events as signals of what their work should prioritise.
Where influence eclipses impartiality
My two decades of business activity in Ukraine and Russia have shown how deeply entrenched political influence remains within commercial and administrative decision-making. Contracts are enforced not merely through courts but through personal networks. Regulatory decisions are often shaped by the prevailing political winds.
Privileges may be granted or withdrawn according to a firm’s alignment with current political interests. These patterns have moderated in Ukraine since 2014, but they have not disappeared. They continue to pose obstacles to investment, development, and fair competition.
Unless institutions learn to behave impartially, Ukraine will struggle to attract the long-term investment required for post-war reconstruction, regardless of how many additional agencies are created in the name of reform.
This does not mean that institutional development is pointless.
Rather, it means that the emphasis must shift from quantity to quality. Ukraine does not need more institutions; she needs institutions that work. Transparency, meritocratic recruitment, predictable budgets, public reporting, and external scrutiny are essential. But these measures must be applied consistently, and without political exceptions.
Anti-corruption bodies must themselves be subjected to oversight. Their decisions should be reviewable before courts that command public confidence. Their leadership should be secure in their tenure, not because they are protected from criticism, but because they are shielded from political threats.
The international community must also re-evaluate the pace and focus of its anti-corruption agenda.
Conditionality should be tied not to the creation of new structures but to demonstrable improvements in institutional behaviour. Training, mentorship, judicial reform, and professionalisation of the civil service will yield slower results, yet they are the only means by which impartiality can be internalised.
This is a matter of patience as much as pressure. Foreign partners must recognise that the transformation of political culture cannot be accelerated beyond the speed at which institutions absorb new expectations.
The long road out of inherited patterns
Ukraine is fighting a war for her survival, and corruption is often portrayed as an internal threat comparable to the external one. There is truth in this; corruption weakens the state at a moment when national cohesion and trust in public authority are indispensable.
Yet Ukraine also possesses a civic energy and a sense of purpose unmatched in her modern history.
This gives her an opportunity that few post-Soviet states have enjoyed: the possibility of a long-term cultural transformation within her public institutions. It is an opportunity that should not be undermined by excessive institutional proliferation or by the importation of externally designed models without sufficient regard for political context.
Corruption in Ukraine is not simply the absence of proper institutions.
It is a product of the Soviet-era politicization of public life, a problem that cannot be resolved by structural reforms alone. Only by insulating state institutions from political influence and cultivating an internal culture of impartiality can Ukraine break with her inherited past. This is a slow and difficult process, but it is the only realistic path towards a state that commands public trust and international confidence.
Editor's note. The opinions expressed in our Opinion section belong to their authors. Euromaidan Press' editorial team may or may not share them.
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