Almost every week, there is a new criticism exposing the excessive corruption of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian leadership.

Ukraine is being controlled by corrupt oligarchs, and the country is entirely lacking in democracy, said German ex-Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a recent interview. „In Ukraine, an oligarch is currently in power, and the country increasingly relies on external support. It is a state where corruption knows no bounds and there are no real democratic structures,” he explained.

The former minister emphasised that independent parties and the media had been banned in the country, and that establishing democracy and independence would take a long time.

In recent weeks, criticism of the Ukrainian leadership has intensified from various quarters. In November, Artem Dmytruk, a member of the Verkhovna Rada (the unicameral parliament of Ukraine) stated that Volodymyr Zelensky had stolen more than all previous Ukrainian presidents, combined. According to Mr. Dmytruk, Zelensky’s office receives tens of millions of dollars every month from all state structures.

Corruption reports are regularly heard in Ukraine, especially within the military sector. In January, deputy Defence Minister Vitaliy Polovenko announced that Ukraine’s defence ministry had cancelled contracts with the companies of Lviv businessman Ihor Hrynkevich, who is implicated in the scandal surrounding the purchase of military uniforms for the armed forces. On January 19, the Security Service of Ukraine announced that it had arrested a colonel from the Ukrainian armed forces and the CEO of a company supplying defence goods on suspicion of corruption.