Why are Ukraine's anti-corruption issues roaring back into focus now?

When first-term President Donald Trump leaned on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to provide damaging political material on 2020 electoral rival Joe Biden, his ask was based in part on Ukraine's reputation for a historically questionable commitment to anti-corruption efforts. Fast forward to today, and a very different Ukraine is once again grappling with the specter of crippling national corruption thanks to a controversial law hurriedly signed by Zelenskyy earlier this week. Critics contend it will weaken the country's independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) by placing them under the auspices of Ukraine's presidentially appointed prosecutor general.

After days of mass demonstrations in opposition to the new law, Zelenskyy (facing significant domestic policy protests for the first time) appeared to relent. This morning, the Ukrainian president announced on X that he'd approved a new, still ambiguous draft bill which "upholds the independence of NABU and SAPO."

What did the commentators say?

Demonstrations in Kyiv, as well as across Lviv, Dnipro and Odesa, are Ukraine's "biggest anti-government protests" since Russia began its Ukrainian invasion in 2022, said the BBC. While Zelenskyy initially sought to justify the law as a necessary boost for the "efficiency of Ukraine's anti-corruption infrastructure," critics argue that the bill is "at odds" with the country's pro-democracy efforts. For those critics, the stakes in the controversy are clear, said The Nation. Can a country "fighting for survival" also defend the "hard‑won democratic reforms" achieved in its 2014 anti-Russian revolution?

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The "unusual speed" with which Ukraine's parliament passed its anti-corruption reforms follows "mounting warnings" from activists who've cautioned against an "escalating crackdown on anti-corruption bodies and NGOs" lately, said The Kyiv Independent. Just one day before Zelenskyy signed the legislation, various Ukrainian security agencies conducted "sweeping searches of NABU and SAPO" in what officials claimed was targeting "suspected Russian infiltration and administrative misconduct." Earlier this month, a top anti-corruption activist was arrested and charged with fraud and evading military service, which defenders said was "political retribution for exposing corrupt officials," Reuters said.

Anti-corruption critics claim Zelenskyy has "overstepped his authority under the martial law imposed since the Russian invasion," with the initial law adjusting the NABU and SAPO's independence marking the "latest in a string of steps he has taken to consolidate his power, said The New York Times.

What next?

By enacting the new law's intended reforms, Zelenskyy risked "endangering" Ukraine's "bid to join the European Union," for which a "crackdown on internal corruption" is a "requirement," said Fox News. Some in Ukraine wonder if the new law and ensuing protests have afforded Russia a "powerful propaganda tool" that could be used not only to further divide Ukraine but also damage its "support from the West at a crucial moment in the war," said NBC News. Western officials are "alarmed" that Ukraine might be "backsliding" on its "endemic graft problem."

By submitting his alternate bill Thursday morning, Zelenskyy hoped to "defuse tensions" with a revised law that "underlines" that the prosecutor general's office "cannot give orders to anti-graft agencies or interfere in their work," The Associated Press said. It's "not immediately clear" when Zelenskyy's new bill will get a parliamentary vote, with protests "likely to continue until the law is passed." Still, representatives from NABU hailed the revised legislation as restoring "all procedural powers and guarantees of independence" to it, said the special prosecutors' office in a post on Telegram.

Nevertheless, should state organs like NABU ultimately lose their independence as the initial law proposed, "there will still be anti-corruption activity," said investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov to The Kyiv Independent. "What will remain" is "anti-corruption activity against low-level people."