The asset declarations of senior Ukrainian officials are now public. Although the war is far from over, operating in the reconstruction and agriculture sectors of the Ukrainian administration is still quite lucrative. While the Western press is screaming corruption, Ukrainian ministers are doing quite well for themselves.

Interfax-Ukraine reports that all members of the government will submit their electronic declarations for the years between 2021-2022 by the last day of January this year. An analysis of the statements reveals that the usual official annual income of heads of the government hovers around a „modest” 1-2 million hryvnias (24-48,000 euros).

The analysis indentifies three government representatives who have officially declared significant wealth.

Among the ministers and deputy prime ministers, Minister of Agricultural Policy and Food Mykola Solsky takes the lead. His income over a 2-year period was 51.8 million hryvnias (1.3 million euros). He declared an income of 36.6 million hryvnias for 2021 and 15.2 million hryvnias for 2022, in a country that is constantly asking for Western funds and where the minimum wage – as of 1 January this year – is 7100 hryvnias, or 175 euros.

Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for Reconstruction of Ukraine and Minister for Community Development, Territory and Infrastructure, felt no shame submitting his papers, either. His income is 23.6 million Ukrainian hryvnias (about 580,000 euros) over two years. Mr Kurbakov reported revenues of UAH 12.1 million from 2021 and UAH 11.5 million from 2022.

The richest Ukrainian politicians also include Minister for Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshchin. He commenced his work later than other chiefs in the Cabinet of Ministers, so he only filed a declaration for 2022. However, in the first year of the war he still drew an income of UAH 19.3 million, or around 447,000 euros, from the state, while thousands of young Ukrainians and Transcarpathian Hungarians died on the front line.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov indicated an income of 14 million 712 thousand 47 hryvnias in his electronic statement of assets and income for the year 2023. The defense industry must pay well, because Mr Umerov is recognized for his tendency to spend lavishly.

In 2023, Mr Umerov’s had a salary of 573,873 hryvnias. His income from the sale of securities was 5 million hryvnias, and dividend payments on his shares were worth 9,138,174 Ukrainian hryvnias. Additionally, his wife also declared a neat little income of nearly one and a half million hryvnias.

Mr Umerov’s statement also includes 18.2 thousand dollars in untimed creditor claims, 180.5 thousand and 9.1 thousand hryvnias in cash. In addition, he has 3.8 million and another 1800 hryvnias on his bank accounts, while his wife has 1.1 thousand hryvnias in cash and 8.6 thousand in a bank account. This is nearly impossible to follow.

According to his statement, the minister rented two apartments (80.6 and 128.8 square meters) in Kyiv. He also has a registered address in a 95-square-meter apartment in Kyiv, and his mother owns a nearly 200-square-meter house in Crimea. Mr Umerov’s wife also happens to be renting a spacious, 137-square-meter apartment in the United States.

Wealthy deserving pity

Heads of the Ministries of Education, of Economy and of Health are the poorest. They admitted to ‘only’ making salaries of approx. one million hryvnias, (more than 24 thousand euros).

Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lesovoj declared an income of 856,000 hryvnias for 2021 and 853,000 hryvnias for 2022. Viktor Lyasko, head of the Ministry of Health reported 1.7 million hryvnias for the two years: 764 thousand hryvnias for 2021 and 983 thousand hryvnias for 2022.

In his declaration, Prime Minister Denisz Smihal stated an income of 697.8 thousand hryvnias for 2021, but for 2022 it was already 901 thousand hryvnias.

In one year from 2021, the income of Ruslan Strilets, minister of Environment Protection and Natural Resources, had also doubled. He reported an income of 675,000 hryvnias in the year before the war, and 1.1 million hryvnias in 2022. But this level of pay increase was also true for Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska and Minister of Finance Serhiy Marchenko.

Corruption everywhere

The British The Guardian already published a revealing piece back in 2021, about the strange business dealings uncovered in the Pandora Papers offshore scandal of the vocally so anti-corruption and so anti-oligarch Ukrainian president. In his campaign, the president pledged to clean up Ukraine’s economic and social system dominated by oligarchs and also promised to reveal offshore assets.

In reality, corruption scandals continue apace in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defence has been up to its neck in the most suspicious cases since the beginning of the war, and Western weapons sent to Ukraine often turn up on the black markets in the Middle East.

In the meantime, the Zelensky’s are rolling in the dough.

In 2022, he rented out his 15-room villa with swimming pool in Tuscany to Russian oligarchs, and his mother-in-law has a 4.8 million dollar luxury villa in Egypt. And the First Lady lives the life of Western billionaires and spends her easy fortune in top-line luxury stores, in stark contrast to the miserable everyday life of the Ukrainian people.

Last autumn, a Ukrainian opinion poll found that 78% of Ukrainians blamed President Volodymyr Zelensky for the corruption rampant throughout the country, with many saying the state-wide phenomenon was a bigger obstacle to the country’s economic development than the war with Russia. In the bourgeois press’s futile attempt to excuse the Ukrainian president’s public record, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians believe that Zelensky and his regime are corrupt to the core, as is now becoming increasingly evident to Europeans.

 

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