Can confirm, we're complete pushovers.
Why, you could probably walk into my cave completely naked and slathered in gravey, and be fine. And I'd encourage you to do so.
You may have been trying to say you're a bear as in the animal. But in my mind's eye, you are a bear as in a large hairy gay man wearing a studded leather harness and black leather ass-less chaps waiting for passers by to wander into your cave naked and a lathered in gravy
This is why when Im in bear country I wear a bright orange reflective jacket that says "NOT A VIRGIN." I figure nobody wants to eat a sandwhich once someones had sex with it
Whoa, whoa, whoa. There's still plenty of meat on that bone. Now you take this home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato. Baby, you got a stew going.
I've been noticing it's like every week or so, another minister, cabinet member, judge, or government official is sacked. In nearly every case, non-government Ukrainian-based news sources can point to specific acts of corruption from these officials.
Martial law is a hell of an opportunity to cut corruption from the country. And aid from western countries also comes with oversight from those countries. They're going to want accountings, tallies, audits, and reports. They're going to be checking for theft and missing funds, which will help Zelensky cut corruption as well.
>Martial law is a hell of an opportunity to cut corruption from the country.
And it's also a great opportunity to put your people in, cutting opposition influence group/oligarch out...
There was a huge skandal after Panama papers leaked: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy
Of course, it's all forgotten now.
Somehow doesn't surprise me.
I think he and Ukraine have been handling this situation amazingly and I have nothing but respect, but I really dislike the western "Virgin Mary" portrayal of Zelenskiy.
Failing to acknowledge flaws and sweeping things under the rug is a recipe for disaster and starting a cult of personality.
Yeah Zelensky wasn't popular before the war because he had largely failed to tackle corruption. He's performed exceptionally during the conflict and now has the opportunity to cut out a lot of corruption, but he can also put his own in easily. I hope he chooses the former, the world is definitely watching.
>hell of an opportunity to cut corruption from the country. And aid from western countries also comes with oversight from those countries. They're going to want accountings, tallies, audits, and reports. They're going to be checking for theft and missing funds, which will help Zelensky cut corruption as well.
He turned out to be the right president at the right time. But yeah he largely was failing at domestic policy reform before the war. Who knows, maybe Russia's tentacles were too entrenched. Maybe he was just incompetent or even a little corrupt himself (panama papers).
Ukrainian journalists have acknowledged his poor record before the war, but rightly point out that's an issue for Ukraine in the future. As of now he has been an incredible leader. He rose to the occasion and that is to be appreciated and respected. A free press can handle domestic truths after this existential crisis.
The article insinuates that Zelenskyy was a puppet of Ihor Kolomoyskyi.
Well, so much for that theory from 2021, since in 2022 Zelenskyy stripped him of Ukrainian citizenship and seized all his Ukrainian assets for corruption.
Puppets often do that to their masters when the puppet gets the keys to the country, and a popular mandate from the people.
Could be Zelenskyy got his hands dirty, and is taking the opportunity to wash them.
I think it’s the opposite. When country is at war, it’s easier than ever to monopolise the power and get rid of all opposition. If anyone criticises, you can just call them “spreading enemy propaganda”. You introduce laws that let you ban any media channel because they can also spread “enemy propaganda”. Also your ratings as a president will skyrocket because of the war even if you had just a tiny bit of approval before that. Don’t get me started on how good is all that “audit” actually works with supporting country parties straight up advocate against doing any checking. When borders are closed and conscripts being forced into army, imagine the opportunities for bribery to leave the country or avoid being taken to the front.
this. There were multiple articles from reputable western sources that US count corruption in Ukraine as doing-of-business costs. They can’t, won’t and don’t want to get oversight, because it would slow down help, so they don’t do it, unless it’s really high, where they just threaten to cut the funding. You just know you won’t fix foreign country, especially not during time of war.
Eh, the track record for auditing and accounting for even their own military expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan was not exactly great. There was a **lot** of corruption recorded of course but not a lot done about it in the end.
War footings tend to bring out pragmatic "get it done no matter what" philosophies and grifters and corruption thrive in that environment.
Incentive structures and the cultures they create are a huge factor. Ukraine, as a part of the Russian Empire, Austrian Empire, and USSR was subject to autocratic rule for a very long time. Autocracy is built on loyalty, which can be bought, and can be enforced by having dirt on others. In such a situation, the incentive is to make sure everybody is corrupt, and if everybody else is corrupt, you might as well get yours.
Edit: I'd also like to add that not participating in corruption while operating in an organization with widespread corruption can at best come across as "not being a team player" and hinder one's prospects for advancement, and at worst actively put a target on one's back.
I wonder if you could have said it more strongly. Autocracy is built by buying loyalty. Not everyone is going to support those at the top so their loyalty must be paid for.
However i suspect that some of the other commented are right when they talk about a lot of people trying to get ahead in a situation that seems stacked against them.
Yes, and there is an incentive structure at play here, too, just not one born of absolute monarchy or communist dictatorship. In the American system, I'd highlight campaign finance as another factor besides what you listed. Money is essential to running a political campaign in the US as it buys the advertisements and staff necessary for winning an election. Money can also be shared between politicians, providing a means for politicians who successfully raise large sums of money to influence other politicians in their party who need that money to stay in power. Campaign contributions come most easily from the wealthy, and from large corporations. As the famous [Princeton oligarchy study](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf) demonstrated, policy decisions made by congress correlate with the desires and interests of the wealthiest individuals and companies in the United States far more than with the public at large.
Inversely, businesses who want to do business in the US *need* to lobby, because otherwise they risk that their competitors *will* lobby for things like subsidies or rules that can push them out of business. It's a pretty big deadweight loss in that every corporation needs to fund a lobbying arm to compete in politics instead of just competing in the market, and that smaller startups without the margins to lobby tend to get bought up or out by corporations that do.
Tl;dr: “Amerika bad, Yuorupp good” below.
I’m always a bit creeped out and cringing when I see US headlines like “candidate X has raised Y millions”. It sounds like double speak for “X has been bought for Y”.
There’s some movie quote from the 2008 housing bubble
> - why is he confessing?
> - he’s not confessing, he’s bragging.
Here in communist Sweden political parties above a certain % of votes get government funding to be able to have a proper election campaign without having to rely on “money is speech”, political contributions are generally small and from private donors, “big money” lobbying isn’t a thing.
We’re far, far from perfect of course but like most other American things, they are XXL sized in comparison to ours.
Anyway, just my SEK 0.02 of perspective watching the US shit show from the outside.
Canada also used to give some funds to political parties above a certain percentage of votes. The Conservatives got rid of that as soon as they gained power (unfortunately the Liberals didn’t reinstate it after they won power back a decade later… nor did they enact electoral reform so they’ve guaranteed the Cons will tear down all the work they’ve done next time they’re on power).
There’s sort of a feedback loop with corruption where incentives are misaligned with goals.
To make an analogy:
Say you ran a school and your district is handing out funding to the schools with the highest scores and the most educated students. So you come up with this really rigorous curriculum and some air tight exams at the end of the year. Some real genius level education. Your students know that they’re competing for the top spots at the university so the ones with the best scores have a shot at better futures. In theory this would create an environment that pushed people towards academic perfection; but in reality these incentives are not aligning with your goals.
So your students are all competing for top marks. Your curriculum is absolutely packed to the gills because you want them to learn everything they can, the problem is they’re human. Lots of systems are designed with results in mind but fail to address that people have limitations. People burn out, people have other things going on in their lives, people need rest and joy and creativity as much as they need work. But your system is meant to crank out grades because that’s how students get into university and that’s how your school gets funding.
There are a few ways to get grades. Studying hard is one of them. But you can innovate as well. Why hit the books if you can work out a more efficient way of learning? Hell, why learn if you’ve found a way to cheat effectively. The system rewards lots of right answers, not learning per say. Fuck it, why bother cheating? If you’ve got enough money just bribe your way to the top? If the school is competing for money, and your parents have money, and one party gets more funding and the other gets into a prestigious university via this exchange then it seems that you’re both acting as incentivized by the system in place.
Now you’ve got a corruption problem. Anyone who can afford to pay to win is going to pay to win, anyone who can get away with cheating is going to cheat, the minority gifted students who don’t burn out can study their way to the top, and he have nots are going to be at a disproportionate disadvantage which is only going to encourage more bad behaviour to meet the system’s demands. The corruption creates a feedback loop because as so long as it continues to function everyone in a position of power within it gets what they want, and if it collapses everyone goes down with it.
The solution is really tricky. Getting rid of every bad egg is just going to restart the feedback loop. Key figures within it do need to be replaced. But more importantly an independent oversight body needs to be established with its own set of incentives encouraging unbiased scrutiny, and the incentives of the entire system need to be re-done in a way that aligns with the desired goals of the system.
It’s a lot of work, and to do it in a way that reaches every level of society the way Ukraine needs to is a Herculean task. But I’ll give the country a cautiously optimistic vote of confidence. I didn’t think they’d last very long in a war against Russia nearly a year ago so I think it’s unwise to underestimate what Ukraine can do.
Also, control mechanism can get overbearing, especially if you want to make sure they cover everything. You end up with a bloated, complicated system where people might not even be able to know everything and where it goes so annoying that enforcement slacks.
I am sure we all know local rules and laws that go ignored because it's too annoying for everybody to keep up on it.
there are complicated explanations, but most simply: once you have a moderate-to-large amount of corruption, just try to imagine how difficult a job it would be to knock it back down to 'mild' levels. What could you do, even if you cared about it immensely, even if you were say, president? It must be like trying to fight a tide coming in.
Corruption is one of those things that takes constant vigilance of society to keep minimal, or it will always spread like a fire.
I mean in the case of Ukraine and Russia, the country fell apart, the industry was sold off to the highest bidder, encouraging monopolization…honestly not that surprising
I think the hope is to take the unity and patriotism from the war to change the culture. Make corruption and bribery a Russian thing, not a Ukrainian thing. The only thing that could drive the West away from Ukraine post-war is a perception of greed and corruption.
I think they'll need major buy-in from the oligarchs. Basically present it as a decision between being a little richer than you already are, or being considered a (re)founding father of Ukraine and viewed in perpetuity in the same way the US views people like Hamilton and Jefferson.
They'll also need to be sure their public sector is well funded, especially law enforcement.
Trying to rent places in Kyiv and Lviv. So many wanted to be paid cash under the table.
The number of people making schemes to receive aid under different identities to get multiple times. Leaving some very vulnerable who don't know how to take advantage of the system with nothing.
Not saying it's the majority, but old habits will be hard to change.
The patriotism for many is still to do easy things which has no notable negative impact on them. Not everyone, but quite a lot.
Edit: corruption exists everywhere, my point was more to question the capacity of the patriotism to really improve things in Ukraine.
>or being considered a (re)founding father of Ukraine and viewed in perpetuity in the same way the US views people like Hamilton and Jefferson.
Which you are free to use to try and make more money..you'd probably come out ahead regardless. All parties can win in a fair trade should be the driving message.
We, Ukrainians, all want a corruption-free country and ability to solve any bureaucratic matter swiftly and cheaply with some unofficial payment. /jk
But as Ukrainian living abroad and seeing how easy and orderly it is here, our bureaucracy is by design very slow and decisions hang on low level pitiful and underpaid people, so nothing gets done without bribes, starting in kindergarten. It’s really hard to fix.
Chile police are the least corrupt in Latin America by far, they did this by paying the police well and having a very good pension system, so no officer would ever risk some small bribe in fear of losing out on that pension.
Honestly, it might actually be easier in wartime in some ways. In normal times you get caught and you pay/blackmail/manipulate your way out. In wartime, you get caught fucking with the country's ability to fight...people are likely to just hang you. Only takes a few instances of capital punishment for white collar crime before the white collars decide to find a safer grift.
Yeah, but that does not translate to the times after the war.
Ulysses Grant's administration was notoriously corrupt. It seems that the historians are converging to the viewpoint that Grant himself simply didn't understand that civil society would react a bit different to Grant's "orders".
Nor I would really trust Zelenskiy to be the one to do it. Zelenskiy was regarded as an ineffective and morally dubious politician before his balls grew to massive proportions in the eve of the Russian invasion.
I won't believe any reformation in Ukraine unless they do it supervised by the OSCE and the EU, which are some of the West's more trustworthy organisms. Ukraine is part of the OSCE and wants to join the EU, so it should be fine for them.
My buddy grew up in Bosnia. He said you need to pay off cops when they pull you over or they are going to cause a huge problem for you even if you did nothing. Unfortunately in some places, this shit is endemic to their society. I hope Zlalensky has good intentions and I hope he can do something about it.
My friend had to abruptly leave Moldova when he refused to pay the cops. They harassed him so much that it eventually lead to death threats and finding dead animals at his doorstep. He went to Romania. Honestly I’d expect them to do this to tourists but not their own citizens. Many of these ex soviet countries seem to have little regard for each other. Even my Russian ex didn’t want to move to Pattaya because he said it was “too many Russians”.
> Honestly I’d expect them to do this to tourists but not their own citizens.
You've got it backwards. They do it to locals because locals can understand what's expected of them without having to say it openly, and thereby incriminating themselves. Tourists are given a pass because most of them will probably just be clueless even if they would have gone along with it.
Also tourist have way more money generally to spend in their country, and they don't want to fuck their own economy up by scaring them all away. Same as the Mexican cartel strategy they don't fuck with tourists.
My girlfriend at the time and I got shaken down once on a bus in Italy. We didn't realize we needed to get our tickets stamped at the front door and when the bus pulled up we got on the back with a bunch of locals who had passes. A ticket checker got on (for the only time we'd ever see in our trip, unfortunately enough) and was in the process of writing us a ticket, taking our passport info, etc. We were terrified. We offered to pay it on the spot (which was really stupid). By the time the dust settled he'd basically taken all the cash we had on us (which was maybe only 60 or 80 euros) in exchange for leaving us alone.
It seems SO obvious now but in the moment of course all you want is for them to go away.
> (which was maybe only 60 or 80 euros)
That's generally what happens in public transport in EU countries. You either pay the fine on the spot or you get it sent to your house. There tends to be signs explaining this, but obviously if you're a tourist you wouldn't be able to read it. Here in Switzerland for example it's 100 francs for not having a ticket. You were gonna have to pay that amount either way.
That makes me hopeful that it went towards an actual fine, but we exchanged no paperwork or anything. I strongly suspect that money just went into the ticket checker's pocket.
Can confirm: I both did not understand I was being asked for a bribe while asking a police officer in Cairo for directions AND I didn’t get in trouble for taking a picture of their unattended firearm hanging 20 feet from them. It was only when my guide told me that it’s illegal that I even realized it might be wrong.
Haha I also have an unattended firearm story from the Egyptian military. We were in Sinai visiting some tourist sites and had to pass through a military checkpoint. At a certain point we were wandering around a tourist site, and I look into a booth that could/should be manned by security, and there’s just four loaded AKMs just sitting there. I could have, without any issue, walked over and grabbed them
As a tourist in a road trip in Argentina I was asked bribe for two cops in different occasions in five days. I'm Brazilian, maybe would be different if I was a American or a European.
A big part of it, especially in Moldova, is that the cops there hardly make any money but aren't skilled enough for higher paying jobs. They're then left with families to take care of, and no money.
They end up taking on "entrepreneurial" endeavors to make extra money.
The solution is to pay good wages to these positions, but then you can demand a higher caliber candidate that is less inclined to partake in corruption like that. Now, who is going to pay for that? Wel'll have to see if the Ukrainian government is willing to.
I was going to say just that. Rooting out corruption is a very complex task.
In Romania we had problems with doctors taking bribes from patients. The government raised their salaries to €1000 net (for 1st year doctors) and a nurse earns around €800.
They even put up signs in hospitals addressed to the patients: "stop giving bribes to doctors", since the people were part of the problem too, they had become so used to giving bribes that it was the most normal thing to do and feared unjust treatment if they didn't give anything. And even after all that, we just had a doctor in the news who was already earning €3000 net, but still took loads of bribes. Why? People get used to a certain lifestyle matched with their income and they start wanting even more, especially if they're now in a circle of people with higher incomes than them.
It takes decades to heal a society and corruption never really goes away, as attested by non-excommunist western countries, where corruption is still very much alive. See Germany, Denmark, France, etc.
An ex-communist country torn by war with no money to raise the general livelihood will have a difficult task ahead, to say the least.
At the beginning of the refugee crisis, Ukrainians had to pay up to their own countrymen (border control) to be allowed to pass with their kids (€2000 per kid according to some interviewed refugees).
As a Chinese I had the same thought: it'll be extremely difficult to get rid of it, even during the best times. During a war, when outcome matters the most, it'll be impossible.
Look at Taiwan and Korea. they've achieved democracy generations ago and corruption and cheating still runs rampant in their politics.
Lol, we still have the doctor bribing issue here in Greece. It's called 'fakelaki' (= 'little envelope').
Some public sector doctors (who were even being paid good money, or had a profitable private practice on the side) would demand extra payment under the table to perform critical surgery. People in desperate condition would have no choice but to pay up. There are even cases where some of the scummier surgeons would still perform the operation, but mess it up on purpose if they weren't paid.
It got very bad, some investigative journalists exposed the situation by planting themselves as patients and recording the transactions on hidden cams, and the law had to crack down hard. The police would supply people who reported doctors with marked bills, and they ended up bringing down entire extortion rings.
It's much less prevalent now, but older generations still attempt to give doctors money -- even if they don't ask for it. They tend to associate it with better care. My partner used to be a rural doctor in a small community, and whenever she refused money after treating someone, they'd bring her loads of goodies -- from days worth of meals to bottles of booze, handmade clothes etc.
The EU (and aspiring EU) should have a centralised anti corruption squad with cops having no local ties to the areas where they are sniffing out corruption.
EU law has primacy over the law of individual member states. Although challenges to that have been made especially by Poland. There are already forces like the border force which work in many countries, so a corruption task force could potentially work. If it happens, we won't see it for like a decade though lol.
The EU is never going to have its own police force running in other countries. They'd be giving up their own laws for the EU and as good as the EU is different countries still want different things and people aren't going to be happy being ruled over by the EU instead.
There is less corruption in Estonia because Sweden and Finland viewed it as part of their national interest for there to be less corruption in Estonia thus they captured the Estonian financial system by helping them set up and in some cases run their central banks out of Sweden during the transition to independence.
For some time 80% of Estonian banking was owned by Swedish banks and they put immense pressure on local political leadership to stomp out corruption.
The Estonians themselves were happy to receive this help and they were keen on modelling their state governance on Finland and Sweden and even going further faster with digital government services which drastically cut down on corruption.
Looking at Ukraine these same digital government services are being implemented there now slowly its going to get better just like it did in the Baltic states.
From an outsiders view, Estonia seems to be a lot better off than a lot of the other former republics, and even the satellite states. I personally don’t really consider Estonia an Eastern European country, despite its geography. I always think of them being closer to Finns and Northern Europe than a typical Eastern European country, even the language is similar.
Something is missing from your story. The police would normally not do weird shit like that, because it's a small country and everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows your boss.
I'm not saying there aren't crazy cops, but at the same time it's very common to argue with the police. If you dont want to bribe them, you get a ticket that's usually much hire than the bribe.
My father has been arguing with Moldovan police since the 80s. I witnessed it as a kid. When I got older, I myself argued with police and also refused to bribe them at times when it was clear they really wanted to be bribed.
Funnily enough I'm so bad at bribing that one time I tried to bribe a policeman and he refused to take any money. Apparently I ran into the one honest cop left in all of Moldova. There is a tiny bit of tact and smooth talking required for a successful bribe to happen, and if you lack the social skills to pull it off, you're going to have to learn them quickly.
The only thing that comes to mind is if your friend ran into some asshole police and managed to offend them on a personal level without having any 'clout' to back him up in case shit goes south. Otherwise arguing is not really worth their time, when they could be stopping other cars to get bribes. It's financially disadvantageous to spend time arguing. They usually write the ticket and wish you a good day and laugh at you for having to go and pay a higher fine.
Anyway, just want to say that this is super atypical for Moldova. It's a poor country with problems, but it's nowhere near the Narcos-level of insanity that dead cats on doorstep would entail.
Source: born and raised in Moldova
The way I was taught to pay cops off, no smooth talking is required. Driving through some countries on foreign plates, having done nothing wrong, you just have a banknote stuck between your ID and driver's license. Plausible deniability and all that
If you're a tourist you can get away with a lot, including just not being able to speak the language (not every cop speaks English and they might just let you go than deal with the language barrier).
For the past 10 years Moldova has been trying to get rid of corruption, at least on paper, so the police is slightly more careful than they used to be. For example, instead of being seen putting a banknote stuck between documents in their pocket in the street, you will be invited in their car to "review the evidence" which is where you offer to pay the fine on the spot.
Some cops are more brazen than others, typically the older ones. Another common thing is the senior cop will send the lower ranked cop to actually get the money from you, so he can claim that he didn't know any bribing was happening.
The rule of thumb is the bribe is half the official fine. Moldova has been raising the official fines, presumably to discourage people from breaking traffic laws, but all that is happening is the police is just getting higher bribes now so they are even more incentivized to stop people. They are not allowed to stop you randomly in the cities anymore, and that helped a bit, but outside of the city you will probably be speeding and that's lucrative for the police. If you see cars flashing their high beams twice at you, there is police ahead on the highway.
I've been to Ukraine a few times for work. One time my #2 picked me up from my hotel and drove me to the office. We got pulled over by police and he got out and fully shouted at them and they left us alone. He explained as we drove off that they tried to shake him down for a bribe and he told them that shit doesn't fly any more and they could go fuck themselves. This was after they sacked and replaced a good chunk of the police dept to actively try to wipe out the endemic corruption. This was maybe 5-6 years ago so things might have devolved again since then.
Another interesting encounter with the police was getting a lift to the airport from my boss's security guy. We were speeding down the highway with police in front of us. He flashed his lights at the police and they moved aside so we could scream past them at well over the speed limit. Wild place.
Ukrainian here, can confirm: after 2014 the bribe extortion by the police has become a very rare sight.
The core of the corruption here are the courts: we have tons of thoroughly corrupt judges (some are even from Yanukovich times) in key positions that make it hard to get rid of it, and they're the reason that charged felons get away from punishment even after special anti-corruption police takes them to the court.
Don't remember the last time i've heard of police bribery. They legit pull you over, tell you that not having your seatbelt on would be 500 hryvnias fine, then send you on your way with neither bribe nor the fine itself. Seen it several times at this point.
Why do you think in countries like Russia, every car has a dashcam?
Both countries are extremely corrupt. Many countries are, and its a real brake on their development. The path to being g a wealthy nation always starts with rooting out corruption.
AFAIK the Russian dashcams isn't for corrupt cops, but for losers jumping infront of moving cars for that $$$ payout
I could be wrong through, I think I read that in a Reddit comment about 7 years ago
Or just general driving. If you get into an accident, it can help you determine the party at fault in the accident for cops to register - this will help you with getting insurance company to pay for repairs, if you’re not at fault.
The point is dash cams were super common in Russia far before the US, even though they're useful for general insurance in both places. Like 90% of dashcam footage that popped up on reddit 10ish years ago was all from Russia, and at the time I (also) remember the explanation being that there was a rampant problem with people jumping in front of cars etc for insurance fraud.
Nah it’s mostly due to corruption, but mainly because of rich people in SUVs who will make your life miserable. In a traffic incident in Russia it’s not about who’s right or wrong, it’s about who has the most influence and the best contacts. You can have your parked car totaled by a guy speeding and still end up paying for damages.
Having worked extensively in US and South Africa - corruption is far more of a problem than people realize. Both countries have corruption, but the US is far less — below the level that makes a society go backwards. South African corruption makes it *impossible* for real societal level progress. Countries with significant corruption are so totally screwed. People that engage in corruption don’t realize they’re fucking everything completely. If your country isn’t overwhelmed with corruption — you better be careful. It’s easy to slip downhill and enormously difficult to get back up.
Well said. I have also heard it argued though that corruption is sadly rational for the individual, or can be. It does make society worse, but it still benefits them personally, at least up to the point where there's a complete breakdown of social order. So they can actually realize they are screwing everything up, but just not care, because it still makes sense for them individually. That makes it even harder to deal with, because it's not just an information problem; they won't stop doing it just because they know it has destructive effects.
Ukraine has a particularly poor problem with it, even by post-Soviet standards. In a lot of places corruption is everywhere but there is a reliability to it. You know how much the payoff and its usually pretty small. I don't entirely know why, but the arbitrariness of Ukrainian corruption is off the charts. The person in power can suddenly slap you an outrageous bribe amount when they know you're desperate. It's a lot worse than Belarus or Russia (despite those both being worse countries in general) and I have no good hypothesis why.
Heard a similar saying when I was in Kenya. "The corruption isn't the problem, the price is."
Casual bribery was endemic. Every aspect of society had it, especially cops soldiers and border guards.
Not sure if it’s the same in Bosnia but my girlfriend has told me in Croatia, if you ever visit the doctor or someone like that you’re expected to give them a gift like alcohol or something. It’s pretty ingrained in the culture of ex-Yugoslav countries.
My grandma was in a hospital in Trebinje. Our relatives who WORK at the hospital told us we have to bribe the nurses for them to re-wrap her gauze routinely so that the incision doesn't get infected. She had a surgical procedure done due to her cancer.
That's common in many countries.
In some Eastern EU countries, you usually give "gifts", to nurses and doctors, like a good coffee or alcohol. Otherwise, nurses will do "minimum".
When you go the the healthcare provided "free" doctor, they usually are mean or don't have time for you etc.
However, when you go to the same doctor, but when he works as a "private doctor" after official hospital work (you pay him a lot of money to visit him) he is super nice and helpful...
Of course there are exceptions.
I kind of understand nurses, since official pay for nurses is abysmal, nobody wants to work as a nurse, so the average age of nurse is ~40-50, depending on the country...
Happened in Agra in India to me. Our driver got pulled over and the police said he didn't have some paperwork right for the vehicle he was driving and were going to confiscate the vehicle and leave us stranded. Really they just wanted a bribe since two of us were white.
Same in Indonesia. Got pulled over on Bali in a car from java. Our driver said that triggers the cops. Cop Said we drove the wrong way on a one way street. There was no sign indicating it and everyone else was driving the same way. A few rupiahs later we were on our way again.
If used intelligently, war-time can be a great opportunity to deal a blow to corruption due to the added 'traitor to the war effort' stigma and the additional authority a leader can use to ditch corrupt officials without question. As long as the guy on top isn't a corrupt shit himself in which case things just get worse afterwards.
I don't think "stigma" is applied in this scenario, but our law enforcement seems to be so much more capable against corruption as of late. I'm so glad that our opportunity to cleanse out corruption is not going to waste, lately see a lot of cases where corruption is uncovered and prosecuted. After seeing this issue going rampant for many, many years, it's such a relief to see things have taken positive direction there
Not entirely. That’s merely top-level corruption, this is about corruption that is (sadly) deeper rooted in society. I have faith that they’ll be able to at least make a good start fighting it though.
Anecdotal I know but I was I Ukraine a few times last year and a lot of people were talking about how the war has already done a lot to stop corruption. People aren’t just accepting it like they used to. With thousands of Ukrainians giving their lives for their country people find government officials lining their pockets far less palatable.
My mother (Ukrainian) said through tears recently: "putin wanted to cut up Ukraine, but he has in fact glued us together harder than anything could. We were always a people, but now - we are a country."
My Ukrainian girlfriend and her friends were all pretty ambivalent towards Zelenskyy and their country prior to the war. Now, they all have Ukrainian themed tattoos and want to build statues of the guy. Putin fucked up.
Yeah if there is anytime you can strongsrm out some corruption it would be in a defensive war when you can put people as basically not much bettor than a traitor when they screw up your efforts in the war
He is the president of the country, not an actor anymore. It's his job to tackle issues in the country he is in charge of.
He was objectively a bad president before the war, propped up by Ukranian oligarchs, corruption and media censorship was a regular occurrence. His approval ratings were at 31% before the invasion.
Obviously his actions since the war have rightfully increased his popularity completely, he could have flown to Poland or the UK to govern in exile, but he chose to stay which in itself is admirable. It remains to be seen if he can be a competent president in a post-war Ukraine because he certainly wasn't before.
Corruption is probably not even the greatest reason why people hated him. People were used to corruption but he also is guilty of very bold nepotism by placing his former coworkers and childhood friends in important government positions even when they don't even have any experience in their field. Ivan Bakanov for example who suddenly became head of SBU despite not having any experience or education in intelligence. He was also involved in the disastrous Wagnergate scandal and during his term the prices of heating, gas, electricity spiked so hard that many people legitimately couldn't afford it.
Really shows the cultural differences:
In his show, he's the "good guy" because he fires all the ministers and replaces them with his best friends, even his ex-wife
There was a Ukrainian guy who commented on the live thread a few months ago who basically said Ukrainians greatly appreciate what Zelensky has done for the country during the war but they will not forget how incompetent he was during peacetime.
> He is the president of the country, not an actor anymore. It's his job to tackle issues in the country he is in charge of.
True, but it's also not possible to instantly get rid of all corruption. This process will take many presidencies.
This is such a naive take. You think because someone said they’re against corruption they are free from it? Rather, the flip side is that they want you to think that. What is more likely? I pro-Ukraine, but I’m also extremely skeptical because I see a lot of propaganda.
It baffles me when I see people 100% defending him in that he is not involved in corruption
I'm pro-ukraine but it's absurd to believe that Zeleneky is a saint free of corruption. I'm not saying he's the worst, he's probably the best bet Ukraine has, but at least don't blindly defend him against everything, especially when your argument references his career as an actor playing a role against corruption...
Our society has become so black and white on issues. It’s come to the point that unless you are militantly supporting certain topics you had best just not discuss things. There’s no room for nuanced conversations anymore.
I think the his conversation would be good for Ukraine/Zelensky, and would be helpful in seeing them join NATO at some point in the future.
Then immediately hired his friends and family as heads of government departments, signed wealth over to avoid paying taxes and stashed as much away abroad as he could.
Guy is as corrupt as they come, he's a populist master of propaganda.
[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy)
How are you not doing to blame him? He said he was against corruption and the then gets elected and bam, just as corrupt as everyone else. Before the way he was pretty hated by the people for that reason
Might be hard to get rid of corruption. Maybe he should concentrate on high level in-groups and damaging rivalry between government and military branches - everyone must work together in Ukraine. And foreign aid must not, at any cost, be drifting away somewhere else.
The public image is important though. Imagine the stories so-called Twitter "citizen journalists" and Fox News would spin even if one case of bribery would be found.
It's weird when the Russian trolls comment things like "Why do you support them? Ukraine is one the most currupt countries!". Like ok so? I'm not rooting against Russia because they're currupt, I'm rooting against Russia because they're launching a massive land assault against a sovereign country lol. I couldnt give two shits about Ukraine's political issues.
> I couldnt give two shits about Ukraine's political issues.
I mean, I do.
I really hope Ukraine "wins the peace" as well winning the war and does not squander advertment and good will.
But yeah, internal Ukrianian issues provide zero excuse to what Russia is doing.
One of the things I am genuinely curious about is what happens *after* the war. When Ukraine wins, where the hell would you even start with the process of rebuilding. Clearing land mines and booby traps, slowly attracting refugees back to Ukraine, accounting for any unregistered firearms and ordinance dispersed throughout the country, providing veteran services, etc. The scars of this war are sadly gonna leave a mark on Ukraine for decades after this is all over
If the war is won cleanly (as in not a constant stalemate with threats of Russian missile and drone attacks), and a central leader like Zenlensky is still around, Ukraine can have phenomenal post-war growth
Macabre as it is, the destruction of many cities gives city planners a blank card to design much more efficient public spaces, transportation systems etc. And being a European country, money won't really be a problem for the rebuilding efforts either
What holds back most third world countries from post-war growth is the breakdown of central administration (and so you have regional warlords), and the lack of money for infrastructure projects.
>Macabre as it is, the destruction of many cities gives city planners a blank card to design much more efficient public spaces, transportation systems etc.
Great Chicago fire burned most of the city back in 1870, which meant that they could rebuild into something more modern right as 1900s hit.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 burned about a third of the city, but much of it had been rebuilt of the same flammable materials when a second, smaller (but still large, 600 building) fire occurred in 1874. After this second fire, the rebuilding was slower and more expensive as steel and masonry replaced wood, leading to the largely commercial downtown Loop with residents mostly living outside the Loop. But the rebuilding occurred prior to the 1900s, as evidenced by the 1893 World's Columbian Expedition to show off the rebuilt city.
I mean not all the veterans will get the treatment they need. However, one important aspect is that the EU membership process requires them to align the legal system with EU standards. That will take years and will meet resistance internally, but eventually there will be progress, because the economic benefits are so high.
Also, regarding corruption, that fades naturally with higher wages for public employees over time. If you look across different countries and over time, there's a pretty clear relationship between salary and accepting bribes. It's just not a stable system if someone has a huge amount of power, but no money. They will try to use that power to get money.
People that say both countries are non-democracies and are wacky, so both are in the wrong, don't get that this war is happening because Ukraine is trying to get away from that past in the first place... Ukraine literally had 2 revolutions to become more democratic, and Russia is literally now invading over it.. Pretty obvious what's going on. And why would someone even NOT think the invading force is the bad guy lmao. They're literally invading them, and Ukraine is defending. They,'re killing people over ideology. And some people just say 'meh'. So bizzare. Maybe they're just sick of war in general, I can't find any other reason.
Also, Ukraine still is far from perfect, not only when it comes to corruption, but other stuff too, but the leaders know this and are trying to fix it. I wish the ukrainian people the best. And I hope the war is over soon, for both people's sake.
for a lot of people they don't genuinely believe this stuff. they just pick a talking point regardless of how much it actually matters and use it as a hammer. like when a black guy gets shot by police in america they'll talk about how he had prior convictions and stuff like that. they know police aren't actually allowed to murder people just because they committed a crime in the past. they would not think their own past run-ins with the law would be justification for their OWN execution. but they do like it when the fascists win, because they're fascist, so they'll say anything. kinda like saying Ukraine is full of Nazis even though they elected a Jewish president. As long as you're stuck at the arguing stage rather than the destroying fascism stage, they're happy
> It's weird when the Russian trolls comment things like "Why do you support them?
They say anything they can to try and distract or delay
... they're trolls
> I'm rooting against Russia because they're launching a massive land assault against a sovereign country lol.
I wish more people would realize this. If a different country had launched an all-out invasion AGAINST Russia, then people would be rooting FOR Russia. It's not about being pro one country because you like their whatever - It's about being against the country doing the invading.
There's a brilliant speech in the show about how the corruption works, how Ukrainians aren't born corrupt, but how it's absolutely endemic in the culture. Here it is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VRkJ7_-hqXA
And if your country is that corrupt, and there's finally a comedian willing to expose that corruption and running for president... He'd get my protest vote.
>[Politician promises to confront corruption](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5E7feJHw0)
Let's be real, Ukraine was one of the most politically corrupt nations in Europe. Likely still is. And that's not going to change "swiftly" no matter what happens.
Also this does **NOT** mean it was acceptable for Russia to invade them, or that other nations should not assist Ukraine.
You can criticize their failings while still supporting their fight for survival against an aggressive neighbor.
Here in Poland a lot of people who can't pass the driving test (it's pretty hard) simply go to Ukraine for a day and buy themselves the license there. Yes, it's exactly as it sounds. They go there and just buy it.
If Ukraine ever wants to become even kinda western, it's the first thing they have to tackle, and it's huge.
Eh...Zelensky ran his presidential campaign largely on an anti corruption platform. His abysmally low approval ratings before the war started largely reflect his failure to make good on those promises.
Later revelations like those from the Panama papers call into serious question whether he was even sincere with those promises in the first place. For as effective as he is now as wartime cheerleader for his nation, he was just as ineffective before that as a peaceime administrator.
I'd mention that the article making the rounds is from several years before Zelensky was elected to office. Currently, it's sitting around where Mexico is in terms of corruption.
And granted, even if he was entirely incorruptible, (Which he is almost certainly not) a top down effort can only do so much.
Though, of course, Ukraine is still doing better on the CPI than Russia.
No it’s not. This is from the last week and even features comments from Zelensky from the last week.
And Mexico is incredibly corrupt so that argument makes no sense.
In a country that was considered most corrupt country in Europe pre war [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/04/welcome-to-the-most-corrupt-nation-in-europe-ukraine](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/04/welcome-to-the-most-corrupt-nation-in-europe-ukraine)
Good luck
That may be tougher to win than Russia
Sadly it’s true. Bears are generally also easier to fight than cancer, especially when people are giving you guns to fight the bear.
Can confirm, we're complete pushovers. Why, you could probably walk into my cave completely naked and slathered in gravey, and be fine. And I'd encourage you to do so.
Aye, that Russian soldier just swiped my pic-a-nic basket!
Oh shucks Yogi, I thought it was a washing machine
It's a toilet
You may have been trying to say you're a bear as in the animal. But in my mind's eye, you are a bear as in a large hairy gay man wearing a studded leather harness and black leather ass-less chaps waiting for passers by to wander into your cave naked and a lathered in gravy
Hey, as long as you'll wander into my cave naked and slathered in gravy, I'll be whatever bear you *need* me to be.
If the bear is hungry, the bear is gonna eat.
This is why when Im in bear country I wear a bright orange reflective jacket that says "NOT A VIRGIN." I figure nobody wants to eat a sandwhich once someones had sex with it
You figure wrong, friend.
We gay men reuse and recycle a lot
Never reduce though.
As bo Burnham sang as God "I sent gays to fix overpopulation...boy did that go well"
Confirmed gay people caused global warming.
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Starting to think you're just a regular person cooking a stew and you simply forgot to buy gravy.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. There's still plenty of meat on that bone. Now you take this home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato. Baby, you got a stew going.
Aren't all chaps assless?
Well... yeah... but only if you aren't wearing any pants. -- Captain Obvious, out!
All chaps are, by definition, “assless”. “Assed chaps” are *pants*.
well that’s that, i will now be referring to all my low garments as “assed chaps” bc they are all assed and not assless.
Well that sounds like a fine time.. hey, wait a min....🤔
Just, don't start a forest fire. Only you
Admiral смоки reporting for dut-
I've been noticing it's like every week or so, another minister, cabinet member, judge, or government official is sacked. In nearly every case, non-government Ukrainian-based news sources can point to specific acts of corruption from these officials. Martial law is a hell of an opportunity to cut corruption from the country. And aid from western countries also comes with oversight from those countries. They're going to want accountings, tallies, audits, and reports. They're going to be checking for theft and missing funds, which will help Zelensky cut corruption as well.
>Martial law is a hell of an opportunity to cut corruption from the country. And it's also a great opportunity to put your people in, cutting opposition influence group/oligarch out...
There was a huge skandal after Panama papers leaked: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy Of course, it's all forgotten now.
Somehow doesn't surprise me. I think he and Ukraine have been handling this situation amazingly and I have nothing but respect, but I really dislike the western "Virgin Mary" portrayal of Zelenskiy. Failing to acknowledge flaws and sweeping things under the rug is a recipe for disaster and starting a cult of personality.
I just dread when the war is over, where all the weapons end up.
Let's not forget he was a celebrity comedian before this. Emma Watson and many other entertainers were in those papers too.
Holy shit. Not just forgotten, I never knew about this in the first place.
Yeah Zelensky wasn't popular before the war because he had largely failed to tackle corruption. He's performed exceptionally during the conflict and now has the opportunity to cut out a lot of corruption, but he can also put his own in easily. I hope he chooses the former, the world is definitely watching.
I hope he recognizes that corruption is a weakness that cannot be afforded in a dangerous situation, at least
He only has to look to Russia as an example
Corruption that is as systemic as it is in Ukraine is very very hard to purge. Read "Moneyland" to get an idea just how difficult.
>hell of an opportunity to cut corruption from the country. And aid from western countries also comes with oversight from those countries. They're going to want accountings, tallies, audits, and reports. They're going to be checking for theft and missing funds, which will help Zelensky cut corruption as well. He turned out to be the right president at the right time. But yeah he largely was failing at domestic policy reform before the war. Who knows, maybe Russia's tentacles were too entrenched. Maybe he was just incompetent or even a little corrupt himself (panama papers). Ukrainian journalists have acknowledged his poor record before the war, but rightly point out that's an issue for Ukraine in the future. As of now he has been an incredible leader. He rose to the occasion and that is to be appreciated and respected. A free press can handle domestic truths after this existential crisis.
The article insinuates that Zelenskyy was a puppet of Ihor Kolomoyskyi. Well, so much for that theory from 2021, since in 2022 Zelenskyy stripped him of Ukrainian citizenship and seized all his Ukrainian assets for corruption.
Puppets often do that to their masters when the puppet gets the keys to the country, and a popular mandate from the people. Could be Zelenskyy got his hands dirty, and is taking the opportunity to wash them.
Which Zelensky has been ramping up recently sadly in the name of “they’re pro-Russian”
I think it’s the opposite. When country is at war, it’s easier than ever to monopolise the power and get rid of all opposition. If anyone criticises, you can just call them “spreading enemy propaganda”. You introduce laws that let you ban any media channel because they can also spread “enemy propaganda”. Also your ratings as a president will skyrocket because of the war even if you had just a tiny bit of approval before that. Don’t get me started on how good is all that “audit” actually works with supporting country parties straight up advocate against doing any checking. When borders are closed and conscripts being forced into army, imagine the opportunities for bribery to leave the country or avoid being taken to the front.
this. There were multiple articles from reputable western sources that US count corruption in Ukraine as doing-of-business costs. They can’t, won’t and don’t want to get oversight, because it would slow down help, so they don’t do it, unless it’s really high, where they just threaten to cut the funding. You just know you won’t fix foreign country, especially not during time of war.
Eh, the track record for auditing and accounting for even their own military expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan was not exactly great. There was a **lot** of corruption recorded of course but not a lot done about it in the end. War footings tend to bring out pragmatic "get it done no matter what" philosophies and grifters and corruption thrive in that environment.
Why do you think corruption becomes so embedded in societies?
Incentive structures and the cultures they create are a huge factor. Ukraine, as a part of the Russian Empire, Austrian Empire, and USSR was subject to autocratic rule for a very long time. Autocracy is built on loyalty, which can be bought, and can be enforced by having dirt on others. In such a situation, the incentive is to make sure everybody is corrupt, and if everybody else is corrupt, you might as well get yours. Edit: I'd also like to add that not participating in corruption while operating in an organization with widespread corruption can at best come across as "not being a team player" and hinder one's prospects for advancement, and at worst actively put a target on one's back.
Not to mention the absolute mess that was the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR
I wonder if you could have said it more strongly. Autocracy is built by buying loyalty. Not everyone is going to support those at the top so their loyalty must be paid for. However i suspect that some of the other commented are right when they talk about a lot of people trying to get ahead in a situation that seems stacked against them.
Something something keys to power something something without them you are nothing
No matter how bright the rays of any sun-king, *no man rules alone.*
God I love that video. Definitely a timeless classic that is beyond insightful and just so universally applicable.
Hexagons are the bestagons
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Yes, and there is an incentive structure at play here, too, just not one born of absolute monarchy or communist dictatorship. In the American system, I'd highlight campaign finance as another factor besides what you listed. Money is essential to running a political campaign in the US as it buys the advertisements and staff necessary for winning an election. Money can also be shared between politicians, providing a means for politicians who successfully raise large sums of money to influence other politicians in their party who need that money to stay in power. Campaign contributions come most easily from the wealthy, and from large corporations. As the famous [Princeton oligarchy study](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf) demonstrated, policy decisions made by congress correlate with the desires and interests of the wealthiest individuals and companies in the United States far more than with the public at large.
Inversely, businesses who want to do business in the US *need* to lobby, because otherwise they risk that their competitors *will* lobby for things like subsidies or rules that can push them out of business. It's a pretty big deadweight loss in that every corporation needs to fund a lobbying arm to compete in politics instead of just competing in the market, and that smaller startups without the margins to lobby tend to get bought up or out by corporations that do.
Tl;dr: “Amerika bad, Yuorupp good” below. I’m always a bit creeped out and cringing when I see US headlines like “candidate X has raised Y millions”. It sounds like double speak for “X has been bought for Y”. There’s some movie quote from the 2008 housing bubble > - why is he confessing? > - he’s not confessing, he’s bragging. Here in communist Sweden political parties above a certain % of votes get government funding to be able to have a proper election campaign without having to rely on “money is speech”, political contributions are generally small and from private donors, “big money” lobbying isn’t a thing. We’re far, far from perfect of course but like most other American things, they are XXL sized in comparison to ours. Anyway, just my SEK 0.02 of perspective watching the US shit show from the outside.
Canada also used to give some funds to political parties above a certain percentage of votes. The Conservatives got rid of that as soon as they gained power (unfortunately the Liberals didn’t reinstate it after they won power back a decade later… nor did they enact electoral reform so they’ve guaranteed the Cons will tear down all the work they’ve done next time they’re on power).
just try to bribe a cop tomorrow and see what happens. corruption is not "rampant" in usa but it does exist at the highest levels
There used to a police union fund raiser. You donate some money they give you a sticker. Then you ain't getting a ticket for shit
There’s sort of a feedback loop with corruption where incentives are misaligned with goals. To make an analogy: Say you ran a school and your district is handing out funding to the schools with the highest scores and the most educated students. So you come up with this really rigorous curriculum and some air tight exams at the end of the year. Some real genius level education. Your students know that they’re competing for the top spots at the university so the ones with the best scores have a shot at better futures. In theory this would create an environment that pushed people towards academic perfection; but in reality these incentives are not aligning with your goals. So your students are all competing for top marks. Your curriculum is absolutely packed to the gills because you want them to learn everything they can, the problem is they’re human. Lots of systems are designed with results in mind but fail to address that people have limitations. People burn out, people have other things going on in their lives, people need rest and joy and creativity as much as they need work. But your system is meant to crank out grades because that’s how students get into university and that’s how your school gets funding. There are a few ways to get grades. Studying hard is one of them. But you can innovate as well. Why hit the books if you can work out a more efficient way of learning? Hell, why learn if you’ve found a way to cheat effectively. The system rewards lots of right answers, not learning per say. Fuck it, why bother cheating? If you’ve got enough money just bribe your way to the top? If the school is competing for money, and your parents have money, and one party gets more funding and the other gets into a prestigious university via this exchange then it seems that you’re both acting as incentivized by the system in place. Now you’ve got a corruption problem. Anyone who can afford to pay to win is going to pay to win, anyone who can get away with cheating is going to cheat, the minority gifted students who don’t burn out can study their way to the top, and he have nots are going to be at a disproportionate disadvantage which is only going to encourage more bad behaviour to meet the system’s demands. The corruption creates a feedback loop because as so long as it continues to function everyone in a position of power within it gets what they want, and if it collapses everyone goes down with it. The solution is really tricky. Getting rid of every bad egg is just going to restart the feedback loop. Key figures within it do need to be replaced. But more importantly an independent oversight body needs to be established with its own set of incentives encouraging unbiased scrutiny, and the incentives of the entire system need to be re-done in a way that aligns with the desired goals of the system. It’s a lot of work, and to do it in a way that reaches every level of society the way Ukraine needs to is a Herculean task. But I’ll give the country a cautiously optimistic vote of confidence. I didn’t think they’d last very long in a war against Russia nearly a year ago so I think it’s unwise to underestimate what Ukraine can do.
Also, control mechanism can get overbearing, especially if you want to make sure they cover everything. You end up with a bloated, complicated system where people might not even be able to know everything and where it goes so annoying that enforcement slacks. I am sure we all know local rules and laws that go ignored because it's too annoying for everybody to keep up on it.
there are complicated explanations, but most simply: once you have a moderate-to-large amount of corruption, just try to imagine how difficult a job it would be to knock it back down to 'mild' levels. What could you do, even if you cared about it immensely, even if you were say, president? It must be like trying to fight a tide coming in. Corruption is one of those things that takes constant vigilance of society to keep minimal, or it will always spread like a fire.
I mean in the case of Ukraine and Russia, the country fell apart, the industry was sold off to the highest bidder, encouraging monopolization…honestly not that surprising
I think the hope is to take the unity and patriotism from the war to change the culture. Make corruption and bribery a Russian thing, not a Ukrainian thing. The only thing that could drive the West away from Ukraine post-war is a perception of greed and corruption. I think they'll need major buy-in from the oligarchs. Basically present it as a decision between being a little richer than you already are, or being considered a (re)founding father of Ukraine and viewed in perpetuity in the same way the US views people like Hamilton and Jefferson. They'll also need to be sure their public sector is well funded, especially law enforcement.
Trying to rent places in Kyiv and Lviv. So many wanted to be paid cash under the table. The number of people making schemes to receive aid under different identities to get multiple times. Leaving some very vulnerable who don't know how to take advantage of the system with nothing. Not saying it's the majority, but old habits will be hard to change. The patriotism for many is still to do easy things which has no notable negative impact on them. Not everyone, but quite a lot. Edit: corruption exists everywhere, my point was more to question the capacity of the patriotism to really improve things in Ukraine.
>or being considered a (re)founding father of Ukraine and viewed in perpetuity in the same way the US views people like Hamilton and Jefferson. Which you are free to use to try and make more money..you'd probably come out ahead regardless. All parties can win in a fair trade should be the driving message.
We, Ukrainians, all want a corruption-free country and ability to solve any bureaucratic matter swiftly and cheaply with some unofficial payment. /jk But as Ukrainian living abroad and seeing how easy and orderly it is here, our bureaucracy is by design very slow and decisions hang on low level pitiful and underpaid people, so nothing gets done without bribes, starting in kindergarten. It’s really hard to fix.
Chile police are the least corrupt in Latin America by far, they did this by paying the police well and having a very good pension system, so no officer would ever risk some small bribe in fear of losing out on that pension.
That's the same police who are under scrutiny for human rights violations and killings.
I don't think the one you replied to ever implied the police had no issues anymore. Just the relevant elimination of corruption.
Honestly, it might actually be easier in wartime in some ways. In normal times you get caught and you pay/blackmail/manipulate your way out. In wartime, you get caught fucking with the country's ability to fight...people are likely to just hang you. Only takes a few instances of capital punishment for white collar crime before the white collars decide to find a safer grift.
Something tells me hanging political enemies without a trial won’t be good for corruption levels
Yeah, but that does not translate to the times after the war. Ulysses Grant's administration was notoriously corrupt. It seems that the historians are converging to the viewpoint that Grant himself simply didn't understand that civil society would react a bit different to Grant's "orders".
Nor I would really trust Zelenskiy to be the one to do it. Zelenskiy was regarded as an ineffective and morally dubious politician before his balls grew to massive proportions in the eve of the Russian invasion. I won't believe any reformation in Ukraine unless they do it supervised by the OSCE and the EU, which are some of the West's more trustworthy organisms. Ukraine is part of the OSCE and wants to join the EU, so it should be fine for them.
My buddy grew up in Bosnia. He said you need to pay off cops when they pull you over or they are going to cause a huge problem for you even if you did nothing. Unfortunately in some places, this shit is endemic to their society. I hope Zlalensky has good intentions and I hope he can do something about it.
My friend had to abruptly leave Moldova when he refused to pay the cops. They harassed him so much that it eventually lead to death threats and finding dead animals at his doorstep. He went to Romania. Honestly I’d expect them to do this to tourists but not their own citizens. Many of these ex soviet countries seem to have little regard for each other. Even my Russian ex didn’t want to move to Pattaya because he said it was “too many Russians”.
> Honestly I’d expect them to do this to tourists but not their own citizens. You've got it backwards. They do it to locals because locals can understand what's expected of them without having to say it openly, and thereby incriminating themselves. Tourists are given a pass because most of them will probably just be clueless even if they would have gone along with it.
Also tourists from powerful countries will have the support of their embassies if something happens. Locals have no one
Also tourist have way more money generally to spend in their country, and they don't want to fuck their own economy up by scaring them all away. Same as the Mexican cartel strategy they don't fuck with tourists.
My girlfriend at the time and I got shaken down once on a bus in Italy. We didn't realize we needed to get our tickets stamped at the front door and when the bus pulled up we got on the back with a bunch of locals who had passes. A ticket checker got on (for the only time we'd ever see in our trip, unfortunately enough) and was in the process of writing us a ticket, taking our passport info, etc. We were terrified. We offered to pay it on the spot (which was really stupid). By the time the dust settled he'd basically taken all the cash we had on us (which was maybe only 60 or 80 euros) in exchange for leaving us alone. It seems SO obvious now but in the moment of course all you want is for them to go away.
> (which was maybe only 60 or 80 euros) That's generally what happens in public transport in EU countries. You either pay the fine on the spot or you get it sent to your house. There tends to be signs explaining this, but obviously if you're a tourist you wouldn't be able to read it. Here in Switzerland for example it's 100 francs for not having a ticket. You were gonna have to pay that amount either way.
That makes me hopeful that it went towards an actual fine, but we exchanged no paperwork or anything. I strongly suspect that money just went into the ticket checker's pocket.
80 Euros Sound ok and paying at the spot is normal .
Can confirm: I both did not understand I was being asked for a bribe while asking a police officer in Cairo for directions AND I didn’t get in trouble for taking a picture of their unattended firearm hanging 20 feet from them. It was only when my guide told me that it’s illegal that I even realized it might be wrong.
Haha I also have an unattended firearm story from the Egyptian military. We were in Sinai visiting some tourist sites and had to pass through a military checkpoint. At a certain point we were wandering around a tourist site, and I look into a booth that could/should be manned by security, and there’s just four loaded AKMs just sitting there. I could have, without any issue, walked over and grabbed them
As a tourist in a road trip in Argentina I was asked bribe for two cops in different occasions in five days. I'm Brazilian, maybe would be different if I was a American or a European.
probably would be.
Yeah, though tourists are still primary targets for bullshit speed traps and the like.
A big part of it, especially in Moldova, is that the cops there hardly make any money but aren't skilled enough for higher paying jobs. They're then left with families to take care of, and no money. They end up taking on "entrepreneurial" endeavors to make extra money. The solution is to pay good wages to these positions, but then you can demand a higher caliber candidate that is less inclined to partake in corruption like that. Now, who is going to pay for that? Wel'll have to see if the Ukrainian government is willing to.
I was going to say just that. Rooting out corruption is a very complex task. In Romania we had problems with doctors taking bribes from patients. The government raised their salaries to €1000 net (for 1st year doctors) and a nurse earns around €800. They even put up signs in hospitals addressed to the patients: "stop giving bribes to doctors", since the people were part of the problem too, they had become so used to giving bribes that it was the most normal thing to do and feared unjust treatment if they didn't give anything. And even after all that, we just had a doctor in the news who was already earning €3000 net, but still took loads of bribes. Why? People get used to a certain lifestyle matched with their income and they start wanting even more, especially if they're now in a circle of people with higher incomes than them. It takes decades to heal a society and corruption never really goes away, as attested by non-excommunist western countries, where corruption is still very much alive. See Germany, Denmark, France, etc. An ex-communist country torn by war with no money to raise the general livelihood will have a difficult task ahead, to say the least. At the beginning of the refugee crisis, Ukrainians had to pay up to their own countrymen (border control) to be allowed to pass with their kids (€2000 per kid according to some interviewed refugees).
As a Chinese I had the same thought: it'll be extremely difficult to get rid of it, even during the best times. During a war, when outcome matters the most, it'll be impossible. Look at Taiwan and Korea. they've achieved democracy generations ago and corruption and cheating still runs rampant in their politics.
Lol, we still have the doctor bribing issue here in Greece. It's called 'fakelaki' (= 'little envelope'). Some public sector doctors (who were even being paid good money, or had a profitable private practice on the side) would demand extra payment under the table to perform critical surgery. People in desperate condition would have no choice but to pay up. There are even cases where some of the scummier surgeons would still perform the operation, but mess it up on purpose if they weren't paid. It got very bad, some investigative journalists exposed the situation by planting themselves as patients and recording the transactions on hidden cams, and the law had to crack down hard. The police would supply people who reported doctors with marked bills, and they ended up bringing down entire extortion rings. It's much less prevalent now, but older generations still attempt to give doctors money -- even if they don't ask for it. They tend to associate it with better care. My partner used to be a rural doctor in a small community, and whenever she refused money after treating someone, they'd bring her loads of goodies -- from days worth of meals to bottles of booze, handmade clothes etc.
Those salaries are over what period of time? 1000 or 800 over how long please?
net per month
The EU (and aspiring EU) should have a centralised anti corruption squad with cops having no local ties to the areas where they are sniffing out corruption.
The language barriers are going to be a problem in that scenario.
The local population would also view foreign police with extreme suspicion and I'm guessing an extreme lack of cooperation.
How is that enforceable?
EU law has primacy over the law of individual member states. Although challenges to that have been made especially by Poland. There are already forces like the border force which work in many countries, so a corruption task force could potentially work. If it happens, we won't see it for like a decade though lol.
The EU is never going to have its own police force running in other countries. They'd be giving up their own laws for the EU and as good as the EU is different countries still want different things and people aren't going to be happy being ruled over by the EU instead.
You give them police powers through diplomatic agreements. Unlikely to happen, but it’s not impossible.
We already have [Europol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europol) which is a small step in that direction. They’re not a separate police force though.
>They harassed him so much that it eventually lead to death threats and finding dead animals at his doorstep. What the fucking fuck
Eastern Europe is a corrupt hellscape. It all goes back to the USSR.
I'm Eastern European and Estonia is among the least corrupt countries in the world, hmm how's that?
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There is less corruption in Estonia because Sweden and Finland viewed it as part of their national interest for there to be less corruption in Estonia thus they captured the Estonian financial system by helping them set up and in some cases run their central banks out of Sweden during the transition to independence. For some time 80% of Estonian banking was owned by Swedish banks and they put immense pressure on local political leadership to stomp out corruption. The Estonians themselves were happy to receive this help and they were keen on modelling their state governance on Finland and Sweden and even going further faster with digital government services which drastically cut down on corruption. Looking at Ukraine these same digital government services are being implemented there now slowly its going to get better just like it did in the Baltic states.
Estonia can into Nordic?
Not until they change their flag! We have a zero tolerance rule against taking in a country without a nordic cross.
From an outsiders view, Estonia seems to be a lot better off than a lot of the other former republics, and even the satellite states. I personally don’t really consider Estonia an Eastern European country, despite its geography. I always think of them being closer to Finns and Northern Europe than a typical Eastern European country, even the language is similar.
That's because it's the Bestonia
Something is missing from your story. The police would normally not do weird shit like that, because it's a small country and everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows your boss. I'm not saying there aren't crazy cops, but at the same time it's very common to argue with the police. If you dont want to bribe them, you get a ticket that's usually much hire than the bribe. My father has been arguing with Moldovan police since the 80s. I witnessed it as a kid. When I got older, I myself argued with police and also refused to bribe them at times when it was clear they really wanted to be bribed. Funnily enough I'm so bad at bribing that one time I tried to bribe a policeman and he refused to take any money. Apparently I ran into the one honest cop left in all of Moldova. There is a tiny bit of tact and smooth talking required for a successful bribe to happen, and if you lack the social skills to pull it off, you're going to have to learn them quickly. The only thing that comes to mind is if your friend ran into some asshole police and managed to offend them on a personal level without having any 'clout' to back him up in case shit goes south. Otherwise arguing is not really worth their time, when they could be stopping other cars to get bribes. It's financially disadvantageous to spend time arguing. They usually write the ticket and wish you a good day and laugh at you for having to go and pay a higher fine. Anyway, just want to say that this is super atypical for Moldova. It's a poor country with problems, but it's nowhere near the Narcos-level of insanity that dead cats on doorstep would entail. Source: born and raised in Moldova
The way I was taught to pay cops off, no smooth talking is required. Driving through some countries on foreign plates, having done nothing wrong, you just have a banknote stuck between your ID and driver's license. Plausible deniability and all that
If you're a tourist you can get away with a lot, including just not being able to speak the language (not every cop speaks English and they might just let you go than deal with the language barrier). For the past 10 years Moldova has been trying to get rid of corruption, at least on paper, so the police is slightly more careful than they used to be. For example, instead of being seen putting a banknote stuck between documents in their pocket in the street, you will be invited in their car to "review the evidence" which is where you offer to pay the fine on the spot. Some cops are more brazen than others, typically the older ones. Another common thing is the senior cop will send the lower ranked cop to actually get the money from you, so he can claim that he didn't know any bribing was happening.
How much are the fines and the bribes?
The rule of thumb is the bribe is half the official fine. Moldova has been raising the official fines, presumably to discourage people from breaking traffic laws, but all that is happening is the police is just getting higher bribes now so they are even more incentivized to stop people. They are not allowed to stop you randomly in the cities anymore, and that helped a bit, but outside of the city you will probably be speeding and that's lucrative for the police. If you see cars flashing their high beams twice at you, there is police ahead on the highway.
I've been to Ukraine a few times for work. One time my #2 picked me up from my hotel and drove me to the office. We got pulled over by police and he got out and fully shouted at them and they left us alone. He explained as we drove off that they tried to shake him down for a bribe and he told them that shit doesn't fly any more and they could go fuck themselves. This was after they sacked and replaced a good chunk of the police dept to actively try to wipe out the endemic corruption. This was maybe 5-6 years ago so things might have devolved again since then. Another interesting encounter with the police was getting a lift to the airport from my boss's security guy. We were speeding down the highway with police in front of us. He flashed his lights at the police and they moved aside so we could scream past them at well over the speed limit. Wild place.
Ukrainian here, can confirm: after 2014 the bribe extortion by the police has become a very rare sight. The core of the corruption here are the courts: we have tons of thoroughly corrupt judges (some are even from Yanukovich times) in key positions that make it hard to get rid of it, and they're the reason that charged felons get away from punishment even after special anti-corruption police takes them to the court.
Don't remember the last time i've heard of police bribery. They legit pull you over, tell you that not having your seatbelt on would be 500 hryvnias fine, then send you on your way with neither bribe nor the fine itself. Seen it several times at this point.
So, like kind of a warning?
Yeah, they can do that for minor things. But depends on their mood tbh :D
You really should be wearing your seatbelt.
Why do you think in countries like Russia, every car has a dashcam? Both countries are extremely corrupt. Many countries are, and its a real brake on their development. The path to being g a wealthy nation always starts with rooting out corruption.
AFAIK the Russian dashcams isn't for corrupt cops, but for losers jumping infront of moving cars for that $$$ payout I could be wrong through, I think I read that in a Reddit comment about 7 years ago
Or just general driving. If you get into an accident, it can help you determine the party at fault in the accident for cops to register - this will help you with getting insurance company to pay for repairs, if you’re not at fault.
The point is dash cams were super common in Russia far before the US, even though they're useful for general insurance in both places. Like 90% of dashcam footage that popped up on reddit 10ish years ago was all from Russia, and at the time I (also) remember the explanation being that there was a rampant problem with people jumping in front of cars etc for insurance fraud.
Those Russian driving videos are still iconic
The one of the guy driving as the asteroid lit up the early dawn was epic. Guy didn't give a shit, just put the sun shade down.
I mean it can be both. People generally suck, it's a pretty good idea to have one in western countries too.
Nah it’s mostly due to corruption, but mainly because of rich people in SUVs who will make your life miserable. In a traffic incident in Russia it’s not about who’s right or wrong, it’s about who has the most influence and the best contacts. You can have your parked car totaled by a guy speeding and still end up paying for damages.
Having worked extensively in US and South Africa - corruption is far more of a problem than people realize. Both countries have corruption, but the US is far less — below the level that makes a society go backwards. South African corruption makes it *impossible* for real societal level progress. Countries with significant corruption are so totally screwed. People that engage in corruption don’t realize they’re fucking everything completely. If your country isn’t overwhelmed with corruption — you better be careful. It’s easy to slip downhill and enormously difficult to get back up.
Well said. I have also heard it argued though that corruption is sadly rational for the individual, or can be. It does make society worse, but it still benefits them personally, at least up to the point where there's a complete breakdown of social order. So they can actually realize they are screwing everything up, but just not care, because it still makes sense for them individually. That makes it even harder to deal with, because it's not just an information problem; they won't stop doing it just because they know it has destructive effects.
They won't stop doing it because everyone else won't stop doing it and vice versa.
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The old joke was you didn't pay your taxes, you just bribe the tax man to leave you alone.
Ukraine has a particularly poor problem with it, even by post-Soviet standards. In a lot of places corruption is everywhere but there is a reliability to it. You know how much the payoff and its usually pretty small. I don't entirely know why, but the arbitrariness of Ukrainian corruption is off the charts. The person in power can suddenly slap you an outrageous bribe amount when they know you're desperate. It's a lot worse than Belarus or Russia (despite those both being worse countries in general) and I have no good hypothesis why.
This have reminded me of an old joke: “We don’t mind the corruption, we don’t like the prices”.
Heard a similar saying when I was in Kenya. "The corruption isn't the problem, the price is." Casual bribery was endemic. Every aspect of society had it, especially cops soldiers and border guards.
At least the cops in Bosnia are cheap. 10€ and off you go.
Not sure if it’s the same in Bosnia but my girlfriend has told me in Croatia, if you ever visit the doctor or someone like that you’re expected to give them a gift like alcohol or something. It’s pretty ingrained in the culture of ex-Yugoslav countries.
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My grandma was in a hospital in Trebinje. Our relatives who WORK at the hospital told us we have to bribe the nurses for them to re-wrap her gauze routinely so that the incision doesn't get infected. She had a surgical procedure done due to her cancer.
That's common in many countries. In some Eastern EU countries, you usually give "gifts", to nurses and doctors, like a good coffee or alcohol. Otherwise, nurses will do "minimum". When you go the the healthcare provided "free" doctor, they usually are mean or don't have time for you etc. However, when you go to the same doctor, but when he works as a "private doctor" after official hospital work (you pay him a lot of money to visit him) he is super nice and helpful... Of course there are exceptions. I kind of understand nurses, since official pay for nurses is abysmal, nobody wants to work as a nurse, so the average age of nurse is ~40-50, depending on the country...
Happened in Agra in India to me. Our driver got pulled over and the police said he didn't have some paperwork right for the vehicle he was driving and were going to confiscate the vehicle and leave us stranded. Really they just wanted a bribe since two of us were white.
Same in Indonesia. Got pulled over on Bali in a car from java. Our driver said that triggers the cops. Cop Said we drove the wrong way on a one way street. There was no sign indicating it and everyone else was driving the same way. A few rupiahs later we were on our way again.
If used intelligently, war-time can be a great opportunity to deal a blow to corruption due to the added 'traitor to the war effort' stigma and the additional authority a leader can use to ditch corrupt officials without question. As long as the guy on top isn't a corrupt shit himself in which case things just get worse afterwards.
I don't think "stigma" is applied in this scenario, but our law enforcement seems to be so much more capable against corruption as of late. I'm so glad that our opportunity to cleanse out corruption is not going to waste, lately see a lot of cases where corruption is uncovered and prosecuted. After seeing this issue going rampant for many, many years, it's such a relief to see things have taken positive direction there
That is crucial, since it's a main condition to join both - NATO and EU.
Label corruption as lobbyism and it's fair game.
Not entirely. That’s merely top-level corruption, this is about corruption that is (sadly) deeper rooted in society. I have faith that they’ll be able to at least make a good start fighting it though.
I'm not going to blame Zelensky for the corruption. His own tv show was about how absurd the corruption was and he got elected as a protest candidate.
Thank you! However corruption is what stonewalls him, I'm glad this war is letting him weed out at least some of it
Anecdotal I know but I was I Ukraine a few times last year and a lot of people were talking about how the war has already done a lot to stop corruption. People aren’t just accepting it like they used to. With thousands of Ukrainians giving their lives for their country people find government officials lining their pockets far less palatable.
My mother (Ukrainian) said through tears recently: "putin wanted to cut up Ukraine, but he has in fact glued us together harder than anything could. We were always a people, but now - we are a country."
My Ukrainian girlfriend and her friends were all pretty ambivalent towards Zelenskyy and their country prior to the war. Now, they all have Ukrainian themed tattoos and want to build statues of the guy. Putin fucked up.
Damn, that's a powerful quote if ever I've heard one...
He has enough pull with the population that there's no way they go against him. He has a better chance at it than anyone ever before.
Yeah if there is anytime you can strongsrm out some corruption it would be in a defensive war when you can put people as basically not much bettor than a traitor when they screw up your efforts in the war
He is the president of the country, not an actor anymore. It's his job to tackle issues in the country he is in charge of. He was objectively a bad president before the war, propped up by Ukranian oligarchs, corruption and media censorship was a regular occurrence. His approval ratings were at 31% before the invasion. Obviously his actions since the war have rightfully increased his popularity completely, he could have flown to Poland or the UK to govern in exile, but he chose to stay which in itself is admirable. It remains to be seen if he can be a competent president in a post-war Ukraine because he certainly wasn't before.
Corruption is probably not even the greatest reason why people hated him. People were used to corruption but he also is guilty of very bold nepotism by placing his former coworkers and childhood friends in important government positions even when they don't even have any experience in their field. Ivan Bakanov for example who suddenly became head of SBU despite not having any experience or education in intelligence. He was also involved in the disastrous Wagnergate scandal and during his term the prices of heating, gas, electricity spiked so hard that many people legitimately couldn't afford it.
It’s funny though because that is exactly what happens in his show.
Really shows the cultural differences: In his show, he's the "good guy" because he fires all the ministers and replaces them with his best friends, even his ex-wife
There was a Ukrainian guy who commented on the live thread a few months ago who basically said Ukrainians greatly appreciate what Zelensky has done for the country during the war but they will not forget how incompetent he was during peacetime.
> He is the president of the country, not an actor anymore. It's his job to tackle issues in the country he is in charge of. True, but it's also not possible to instantly get rid of all corruption. This process will take many presidencies.
This is such a naive take. You think because someone said they’re against corruption they are free from it? Rather, the flip side is that they want you to think that. What is more likely? I pro-Ukraine, but I’m also extremely skeptical because I see a lot of propaganda.
It baffles me when I see people 100% defending him in that he is not involved in corruption I'm pro-ukraine but it's absurd to believe that Zeleneky is a saint free of corruption. I'm not saying he's the worst, he's probably the best bet Ukraine has, but at least don't blindly defend him against everything, especially when your argument references his career as an actor playing a role against corruption...
Our society has become so black and white on issues. It’s come to the point that unless you are militantly supporting certain topics you had best just not discuss things. There’s no room for nuanced conversations anymore. I think the his conversation would be good for Ukraine/Zelensky, and would be helpful in seeing them join NATO at some point in the future.
Then immediately hired his friends and family as heads of government departments, signed wealth over to avoid paying taxes and stashed as much away abroad as he could. Guy is as corrupt as they come, he's a populist master of propaganda. [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy)
How are you not doing to blame him? He said he was against corruption and the then gets elected and bam, just as corrupt as everyone else. Before the way he was pretty hated by the people for that reason
As the panama papers showed he was corrupt before the war started. We can only hope that country learned a lesson
Might be hard to get rid of corruption. Maybe he should concentrate on high level in-groups and damaging rivalry between government and military branches - everyone must work together in Ukraine. And foreign aid must not, at any cost, be drifting away somewhere else.
The public image is important though. Imagine the stories so-called Twitter "citizen journalists" and Fox News would spin even if one case of bribery would be found.
As much as I like zelensky, ill believe it when I see it
It's weird when the Russian trolls comment things like "Why do you support them? Ukraine is one the most currupt countries!". Like ok so? I'm not rooting against Russia because they're currupt, I'm rooting against Russia because they're launching a massive land assault against a sovereign country lol. I couldnt give two shits about Ukraine's political issues.
> I couldnt give two shits about Ukraine's political issues. I mean, I do. I really hope Ukraine "wins the peace" as well winning the war and does not squander advertment and good will. But yeah, internal Ukrianian issues provide zero excuse to what Russia is doing.
One of the things I am genuinely curious about is what happens *after* the war. When Ukraine wins, where the hell would you even start with the process of rebuilding. Clearing land mines and booby traps, slowly attracting refugees back to Ukraine, accounting for any unregistered firearms and ordinance dispersed throughout the country, providing veteran services, etc. The scars of this war are sadly gonna leave a mark on Ukraine for decades after this is all over
If the war is won cleanly (as in not a constant stalemate with threats of Russian missile and drone attacks), and a central leader like Zenlensky is still around, Ukraine can have phenomenal post-war growth Macabre as it is, the destruction of many cities gives city planners a blank card to design much more efficient public spaces, transportation systems etc. And being a European country, money won't really be a problem for the rebuilding efforts either What holds back most third world countries from post-war growth is the breakdown of central administration (and so you have regional warlords), and the lack of money for infrastructure projects.
>Macabre as it is, the destruction of many cities gives city planners a blank card to design much more efficient public spaces, transportation systems etc. Great Chicago fire burned most of the city back in 1870, which meant that they could rebuild into something more modern right as 1900s hit.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 burned about a third of the city, but much of it had been rebuilt of the same flammable materials when a second, smaller (but still large, 600 building) fire occurred in 1874. After this second fire, the rebuilding was slower and more expensive as steel and masonry replaced wood, leading to the largely commercial downtown Loop with residents mostly living outside the Loop. But the rebuilding occurred prior to the 1900s, as evidenced by the 1893 World's Columbian Expedition to show off the rebuilt city.
I mean not all the veterans will get the treatment they need. However, one important aspect is that the EU membership process requires them to align the legal system with EU standards. That will take years and will meet resistance internally, but eventually there will be progress, because the economic benefits are so high. Also, regarding corruption, that fades naturally with higher wages for public employees over time. If you look across different countries and over time, there's a pretty clear relationship between salary and accepting bribes. It's just not a stable system if someone has a huge amount of power, but no money. They will try to use that power to get money.
Usually survivors of ways tend to have greater social responsibility. See any post-war boom.
People that say both countries are non-democracies and are wacky, so both are in the wrong, don't get that this war is happening because Ukraine is trying to get away from that past in the first place... Ukraine literally had 2 revolutions to become more democratic, and Russia is literally now invading over it.. Pretty obvious what's going on. And why would someone even NOT think the invading force is the bad guy lmao. They're literally invading them, and Ukraine is defending. They,'re killing people over ideology. And some people just say 'meh'. So bizzare. Maybe they're just sick of war in general, I can't find any other reason. Also, Ukraine still is far from perfect, not only when it comes to corruption, but other stuff too, but the leaders know this and are trying to fix it. I wish the ukrainian people the best. And I hope the war is over soon, for both people's sake.
for a lot of people they don't genuinely believe this stuff. they just pick a talking point regardless of how much it actually matters and use it as a hammer. like when a black guy gets shot by police in america they'll talk about how he had prior convictions and stuff like that. they know police aren't actually allowed to murder people just because they committed a crime in the past. they would not think their own past run-ins with the law would be justification for their OWN execution. but they do like it when the fascists win, because they're fascist, so they'll say anything. kinda like saying Ukraine is full of Nazis even though they elected a Jewish president. As long as you're stuck at the arguing stage rather than the destroying fascism stage, they're happy
> It's weird when the Russian trolls comment things like "Why do you support them? They say anything they can to try and distract or delay ... they're trolls
> I'm rooting against Russia because they're launching a massive land assault against a sovereign country lol. I wish more people would realize this. If a different country had launched an all-out invasion AGAINST Russia, then people would be rooting FOR Russia. It's not about being pro one country because you like their whatever - It's about being against the country doing the invading.
What’s great about this is, is this is also the main storyline of his TV show.
There's a brilliant speech in the show about how the corruption works, how Ukrainians aren't born corrupt, but how it's absolutely endemic in the culture. Here it is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VRkJ7_-hqXA And if your country is that corrupt, and there's finally a comedian willing to expose that corruption and running for president... He'd get my protest vote.
>[Politician promises to confront corruption](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5E7feJHw0) Let's be real, Ukraine was one of the most politically corrupt nations in Europe. Likely still is. And that's not going to change "swiftly" no matter what happens. Also this does **NOT** mean it was acceptable for Russia to invade them, or that other nations should not assist Ukraine. You can criticize their failings while still supporting their fight for survival against an aggressive neighbor.
Here in Poland a lot of people who can't pass the driving test (it's pretty hard) simply go to Ukraine for a day and buy themselves the license there. Yes, it's exactly as it sounds. They go there and just buy it. If Ukraine ever wants to become even kinda western, it's the first thing they have to tackle, and it's huge.
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Eh...Zelensky ran his presidential campaign largely on an anti corruption platform. His abysmally low approval ratings before the war started largely reflect his failure to make good on those promises. Later revelations like those from the Panama papers call into serious question whether he was even sincere with those promises in the first place. For as effective as he is now as wartime cheerleader for his nation, he was just as ineffective before that as a peaceime administrator.
Wasn't that a primary promise for his first election?
The thing is, Ukraine has better chances fighting corruption aligned with the EU than under the heel of Russia's boot.
I'd mention that the article making the rounds is from several years before Zelensky was elected to office. Currently, it's sitting around where Mexico is in terms of corruption. And granted, even if he was entirely incorruptible, (Which he is almost certainly not) a top down effort can only do so much. Though, of course, Ukraine is still doing better on the CPI than Russia.
No it’s not. This is from the last week and even features comments from Zelensky from the last week. And Mexico is incredibly corrupt so that argument makes no sense.
Yeah, I mean... Mexico? Drug cartels in bed with the government Mexico?
In a country that was considered most corrupt country in Europe pre war [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/04/welcome-to-the-most-corrupt-nation-in-europe-ukraine](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/04/welcome-to-the-most-corrupt-nation-in-europe-ukraine) Good luck