Volodymyr Zelenskyy: flirting with authoritarianism?
Ukraine's president is facing first major domestic unrest since the Russian invasion, over plans to water down the country's anti-corruption agencies

"Volodymyr Zelenskyy just betrayed Ukraine's democracy – and everyone fighting for it," said The Kyiv Independent. Last week, our president signed into law a bill that would have stripped two of the country's top anti-corruption bodies of their independence. He then backtracked, but only after thousands had taken to the streets (the first protests since Russia invaded in 2022), and after the EU had issued a rare and embarrassing rebuke, saying the proposed law could jeopardise Ukraine's bid to join the bloc.
Why would Zelenskyy choose to "squander his political capital" in this way, asked Andreas Rüesch in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich). Abroad, Ukraine's wartime president is a hero. But domestically, "he's proven himself for years to be a politician with unforgivable weaknesses", a man who has tried to consolidate power and allowed his allies to carry out "undemocratic manoeuvres". The official reason for the bill was that Russia was influencing anti-corruption investigators. In reality, those investigators had probably "targeted too many of Zelenskyy's political friends".
This whole affair only reaffirms something the EU has known for years, said Anna-Lena Laurén in Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm), but has "chosen to keep quiet about" so as not to undermine the country's fight for survival: "corruption continues to be a major problem in Ukraine". In the military industrial complex in particular, "it is rampant", said Timothy Ash in the Kyiv Post, with insiders skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars from contracts for aeroplane wheels and the like. There's nothing to suggest Zelenskyy himself is "personally corrupt", or that Ukrainians "are more amenable to corruption" than others. It's just an ugly symptom of the "post-Soviet transition".
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Zelenskyy may not be corrupt, said Michael Bociurkiw in the same paper, but he and his increasingly powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, are steadily treading down the path to authoritarianism. It's not so much that elections have been suspended – justifiable given the ongoing war. It's that Zelenskyy's most outspoken critics have been silenced or targeted for criminal prosecution, and other government institutions weakened in order to concentrate power in the president's office. These moves are only undermining Ukraine war efforts. This latest scandal will be seen both in Moscow and among the Maga base in Washington as a "welcome PR gift – reinforcing the Kremlin's narrative that Ukraine is irreparably corrupt and unworthy of Western support".
The West isn't blameless either, said Adéla Knapová in Novinky (Prague). For too long, Zelenskyy's allies have refused to ask "uncomfortable questions, let alone issue ultimatums" about his government's behaviour. "It's high time to do what a true friend should do", and tell the Ukrainian leader "we support democracy and civil society, not autocrats". After all, said Svitlana Morenets in The Spectator, isn't that what Ukraine's desperate fight against Putin is all about? "The war for Ukraine's future is being fought not just on the battlefield, but also within its democratic institutions." Last week that battle was almost lost.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Moldova gives decisive win to pro-EU party
Speed Read The country is now on track to join the European Union within five years
-
Passing sentence in Brazil: the jailing of Jair Bolsonaro
In the Spotlight In convicting Brazil’s former president, its Supreme Court has sent a powerful message about democratic accountability – but the victory may be only temporary
-
What led to Poland invoking NATO’s Article 4 and where could it lead?
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION After a Russian drone blitz, Warsaw’s rare move to invoke the important NATO statute has potentially moved Europe closer to continent-wide warfare
-
Russia slams Kyiv, hits government building
Speed Read This was Moscow's largest aerial assault since launching its full-scale invasion in 2022
-
Disarming Hezbollah: Lebanon's risky mission
Talking Point Iran-backed militia has brought 'nothing but war, division and misery', but rooting them out for good is a daunting and dangerous task
-
Russian strike on Kyiv kills 23, hits EU offices
Speed Read The strike was the second-largest since Russia invaded in 2022
-
Kyiv marks independence as Russia downplays peace
Speed Read President Vladimir Putin has no plans to meet with Zelenskyy for peace talks pushed by President Donald Trump
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?
In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal