Anne Applebaum writes:

A few days ago I called Oleksandr Abakumov, a senior detective at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. I wanted to ask him about his investigation into a kickback scheme in his country’s energy industry. While we were talking, I got interested in Abakumov himself. As he was explaining his motivations, I was struck by the surprising contrast between people like him—the Ukrainian civil servants and civil-society activists who have been demanding transparency from their leaders for two decades—and the American and Russian negotiators who met this week in Moscow, perhaps to decide Ukraine’s fate.

Ukraine is fighting for its survival. Drones and missiles hit Ukrainian cities most nights. Many Ukrainians nevertheless want, even now, to have a government that’s accountable to the public. Meanwhile, American and Russian kleptocrats are circling the country, looking for ways to make deals that benefit themselves.

Abakumov’s career was directly shaped by his country’s history. Until 2014, he was a police detective in the city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. At the beginning of that year, a series of mass protests in Kyiv persuaded Ukraine’s corrupt, authoritarian, pro-Russia president, Viktor Yanukovych, to flee the country. Furious at the loss of their puppet, the Russians immediately invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine, including Luhansk. Ukrainian elections brought a new president to power. Popular demand for reform led to the creation of new institutions, including the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, or NABU, which has from its beginning intended to eliminate high-level state corruption.

Abakumov’s life changed too. He left occupied Luhansk and moved to Kyiv. In 2016, he went to work for NABU, taking a job that he considers to be a great honor. Certainly, NABU is popular: Last summer, after President Volodymyr Zelensky sought to shut the agency down, Ukrainians organized the largest mass protests the country has seen since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. The president changed his mind, and the agency remained open. The job also appeals to Abakumov’s patriotism. He believes that if he can help eliminate high-level corruption, then he can help Ukraine preserve its sovereignty and its democracy. “Corruption equals Russia, and we are not Russia,” he told me. [Continue reading…]