In 2014, the newly elected Ukrainian government resorted to the help of a whole foreign “legion” to put the country on “European” rails. Over the past five years, high government posts in Ukraine have taken more than two dozen specialists from abroad.
Apparently, official Kiev was so impressed with their competence that it was possible to circumvent the current legislation.
According to the government resolution adopted in 2016, only citizens of the republic who have worked in a management position in government agencies for at least seven years and are fluent in the Ukrainian language can be employees of the Ukrainian authorities. Prior to the adoption of this resolution, it was enough for a potential civil servant to have a Ukrainian passport, speak Ukrainian, and renounce second citizenship.
The issue with documents for foreigners invited to work in government bodies was quickly decided personally by President Petro Poroshenko, by issuing a decree.
For example, formerly Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, former Georgian Health Minister Alexander Kvitashvili, founder of a large American investment fund Horizon Capital and US citizen Natalia Yaresko, manager of the Swedish investment company East Capital and a Lithuanian citizen Aivaras Abromavičius, Russian politician Maria Gaidar and others.
- Maria Gaidar and Mikhail Saakashvili
As a source told RT in Blok Petro Poroshenko, foreigners to leadership positions in Ukraine were then invited by the head of the presidential administration Boris Lozhkin.
“He was supported by Western partners, who promised the Ukrainian leadership to recommend the best experts. But they simply do not understand the specifics of Ukraine, as well as the fact that it is impossible to simply copy foreign technologies here. It was also impossible for foreigners to defend the interests of the West, ”the source said.
What is interesting, almost none of the “recruits”, having received a Ukrainian passport, did not refuse from their first citizenship.
“They understood that they came to Ukraine temporarily and in these conditions, changing the citizenship of countries with a high standard of living into Ukrainian did not make any sense,” said Andrei Koshkin, head of the department of political science and sociology at the PRUE, in an interview with RT.
However, after some time, foreign experts, having not achieved practically any results in their posts, one by one began to refuse high posts.
“It was predictable. Why should foreigners rebuild the economy of Ukraine and create a powerful player on the border with the EU? It is much more effective to make Ukraine a raw material country and a supplier of labor resources for its states. The idea was initially a failure - and it is not clear why the country's leadership so hoped for foreign officials, ”said a source in the RT Popular Party.
From the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Most of all foreigners were in the cabinet, which in 2014-2016 was headed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Now, only one foreigner remains in the government - US citizen Uliana Suprun, who may soon lose her position. In early February, the District Administrative Court of Kiev with its decision removed her from the leadership of the Ministry of Health because of a violation of the norms of Ukrainian legislation.
According to the decree of the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers of July 17, 2003, it is possible to fulfill the duties of minister for only one month, then a new minister or another must be appointed. about. or powers of the current and. about. must be renewed. However, the Cabinet of Ministers appealed for Suprun.
One of the first in 2014 to the Cabinet, headed by Yatsenyuk, came Finance Minister, a citizen of the United States Natalia Yaresko. With its help, the state debt was restructured in the amount of $ 12 billion, as well as a technical default on payment of $ 3 billion of Russia's debt. Now this case is being considered in the Supreme Court of Great Britain, and, as the RT source in the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine believes, Kiev will still have to return this money to Russia and pay penalties.
- Natalia Yaresko and Aivaras Abromavičius
- globallookpress.com
- © Wiktor Dabkowski / ZUMAPRESS.com
One of the achievements of Yaresko as head of the Ministry of Finance called successful negotiations with the IMF. True, it is difficult to call favorable lending conditions: at the request of the international financial organization, Ukraine had to create an Anti-Corruption Court, reduce the budget deficit to the IMF figure of 2% of GDP by all possible means, and raise gas prices for the population by 280%. In addition, during the work Yaresko seriously weakened the national currency: from 15.2 to 25.5 hryvnia per dollar.
Nevertheless, Natalya Yaresko predicted the post of prime minister, but she left her post in 2016, and a year later she was appointed executive director of the Council of Financial Control and Management of Puerto Rico, where her annual salary, according to media reports, was $ 625 thousand However, a month and a half after its arrival, the island state declared its bankruptcy.
Simultaneously with Yaresko, the Minister of Health was appointed to the cabinet of ministers - a citizen of Georgia Alexander Kvitashvili and the minister of economy, a citizen of Lithuania Aivaras Abromavičius. A year later, 67 people's deputies sent a letter to Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk demanding to dismiss Kvitashvili, since the department was in a critical situation.
The head of the ministry and his first deputy Oleksandr Pavlenko were accused of systematically blocking the process of registering medicines and wholesale selling prices for them, which is why state institutions in Ukraine were unable to purchase medicines on time. In addition, according to the deputies, the Ministry of Health did not send a single seriously ill Ukrainian for treatment abroad, although 152 million hryvnias ($ 5.4 million) were allocated from the budget for these purposes. Nevertheless, then Rada was not able to dismiss Kvitashvili: he left his post only in 2016 after the dismissal of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the dissolution of his government.
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The work of the Minister of Economy Aivaras Abromavicius, who in 2016 accused the closest circle of President Petro Poroshenko of corruption, ended with a loud scandal.
“I and my team have no desire to be a cover for outright corruption or controlled puppets for those who want to establish control over state money in the style of the old government. I don’t want to go to Davos, tell them about our successes, while behind our back some issues are solved in the interests of certain people, ”he said.
According to him, the business partner of the president and an influential member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction Igor Kononenko promoted his people to the positions of general directors of the companies Ukrhimtransammiak, Ukrzovshinform, the National Agency for Accreditation of Ukraine, as well as the deputy minister of economy responsible for Naftogaz ", and in other state-owned enterprises. Kononenko refuted all statements by the minister.
“From the scandal with Abromavicius were left alone bubbles. Moreover, I can say that I have information about who did it! ”Said Kononenko on the Ukrainian TV channel ZIK in January 2019.
For the reform of the Ukrainian police in 2014–2016, a citizen of Georgia was in charge - Deputy Minister of the Interior Eka Zguladze, who helped carry out similar transformations in her homeland in 2005–2012. During this time, the police were renamed the police, acquired a new uniform for employees and updated the fleet. However, as the chairman of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration, Gennady Moskal, said in an interview with Novoye Vremya in January 2018, the recruitment of police officers based on the results of competitions and the attestation of employees did not give a positive result. Everyone who was able to reveal something from law enforcement agencies left.
“There is no police as such. They can still solve a crime like stealing a bicycle, but contract killings, gunshot killings are practically not revealed in Ukraine. And you see, now a whole wave of such crimes has gone, ”said Moskal.
In 2016, two years after the start of the reform, 592.6 thousand criminal offenses were committed in Ukraine, which is 27.4 thousand more compared to 2015. Such data is contained in the report of the General Prosecutor's Office. In addition, the number of serious crimes in 2016 increased by 20%.
Second tier
In addition to government structures, many foreigners at the invitation of Petro Poroshenko got a job at leading positions in the state corporation and headed the regions. In 2016, Pole Wojciech Balchun became the head of the Ukrainian railways. He promised to improve the quality of passenger service and purchase new cars, and divide the company into five sectors by business directions (freight and logistics, passenger traffic, infrastructure, traction services, production and service). But a year and four months later, the Cabinet dismissed Balchun.
- Wojciech Balchun
- globallookpress.com
- © Sergii Kharchenko / ZUMAPRESS.com
According to the Minister of Infrastructure Vladimir Omelyan, the only achievement of the Pole was the repair of the escalator at the Central Railway Station, which, however, soon failed again. Omelyan added that numerous abuses were discovered in the activities of the officials of the Ukrainian Railways, which were investigated by the Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Police.
“This will be a warning to the future leadership of the Ukrainian railways that they need to work for the state,” he said.
Among those invited to the civil service there were also many immigrants from Georgia. Among them are the prosecutor of the Odessa region and the Deputy Prosecutor General David Sakvarelidze, the Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine Gia Getsadze and the First Deputy of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau Gizo Uglava. However, none of them could show any significant results, they all did not hold out on their posts for more than two years.
Undoubtedly, the brightest representative of the Georgian diaspora was a classmate of Petro Poroshenko, Mikhail Saakashvili, who in May 2015 was appointed governor of the Odessa region.
“Saakashvili met with businessmen and ordinary Ukrainians, fought with the environment of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, opened a very expensive office that provided services, and talked a lot about attracting investment in the Odessa region. But as a result, he managed to quarrel with the team of mayor Gennady Trukhanov, Petro Poroshenko and illegally cross the Ukrainian border under the cameras. Saakashvili left, did nothing, but the sediment remained, ”says a source RT surrounded by Trukhanov.
In mid-February last year, the State Border Service of Ukraine deported Saakashvili to Poland, and his Ukrainian passports were invalid.
- Mikhail Saakashvili and Maria Gaidar
- © Frame: YouTube video
Among the invited foreigners was a Russian woman, a former member of the political council of the Union of Legal Forces party and the founder of the Social Inquiry Social Assistance and Population Support Foundation, Maria Gaidar. She came to the team of Mikhail Saakashvili, who appointed her as his deputy for social issues. But in 2016, Gaidar resigned, becoming a deputy of the Odessa Regional Council from the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko - according to the norms of the law "On public service" in Ukraine it is forbidden to combine the positions of deputy and official.
In addition, the volunteers and fighters of the ATO, who accused her of not paying compensation to the families of fighters killed in the east of the country, insisted on resigning Gaidar. In 2017, Poroshenko appointed Maria Gaidar as his adviser, and since then she rarely appears in front of television cameras.
“This is an abnormal situation - to invite such a number of foreigners. They were expected to eliminate corruption, reform the country's economy, although the Ukrainians know the specifics much better. This is a tragedy for Ukraine and an ill-considered step, ”says Koshkin.
The RT source in the Radical Party also notes that the policy of attracting foreigners to work in the civil service did not produce any results and is unlikely to give in the future.
“This is a great PR and nothing more. It seems that Ukrainians will have to cope on their own. But how to solve all the major problems, no one knows. Many state institutions were destroyed, and nothing was created in their place, ”he says.
Andrei Suzdaltsev, in turn, said in a conversation with RT that Ukraine is a unique country from an economic point of view and is extremely difficult to reform.
“Ukraine is a unitary state, so many decisions come down from above. But they are inefficient due to the high level of corruption, since all funding actually remains in Kiev. If the country would have a federal state system, it would be much easier. Obviously, the reform of education and medicine for the western and eastern parts of the country should be different, ”says Suzdaltsev.
From the point of view of an expert, corruption is the basis of the state, therefore, if it is eliminated, then “the country will simply fall apart”. In Ukraine, one must be able to negotiate even with enemies, but foreigners do not understand these features, according to Suzdaltsev.
In addition, experts note another interesting trend: ordinary citizens of Ukraine, as well as people's elected representatives, are increasingly seeking to acquire a second citizenship. According to some information, 49 deputies of the Verkhovna Rada now have a foreign passport.
Ordinary Ukrainians massively receive Polish, Hungarian and Czech passports. According to estimates by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, about 2 million people in the country have dual citizenship.
“Young people understand that the situation in Ukraine can get out of control and become catastrophic. They want to protect themselves from this, to have an emergency exit, ”says Koshkin.
According to the expert, Ukraine is gradually transforming into a country with external control. Therefore, the emergence of new "Varyags" after the election of the President of Ukraine in the March 31 elections is not excluded.