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Ukrainian President Voloddymyr Zelenskiy during a visit to the Latvian Museum of Occupation in Riga on October 16, 2019. Gints Ivuskans / AFP

In Ukraine, an employee of the Ukrainian presidency was arrested on Tuesday, 12 November for receiving a bribe. She was caught in the act when she collected $ 150,000.

This $ 150,000 was actually the first installment of a $ 300,000 bribe, or about 270,000 euros. A sum that the head of one of the departments of the presidential administration had claimed to facilitate the appointment of a person within Naftogaz, the country's public energy company, according to the anti-corruption bureau.

Several Ukrainian media reports Svetlana Kondzelu, a 45-year-old woman, who was the director of the department responsible for responding to citizens' requests. She was arrested Tuesday along with several accomplices, including a former Deputy Minister of Culture.

The case illustrates the difficulty facing the new administration in its fight against corruption. In a statement published on its social networks, the Ukrainian presidency states that: " for the head of state, there is no difference between his (teams) and the others. Corruption must be uprooted : the higher the position of a corrupt official, the more dangerous his offenses are for the state ".

Since Volodymyr Zelenskiy came to power in the spring, anti-corruption legislation has been strengthened. Prosecutions have been initiated against several senior officials, past and present. The employee caught in the act had been in the chair for 10 years.