By Maria Starkova
LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that corruption, the country's chronic problem cast into the background by the war against Russia, would not be tolerated and promised forthcoming key decisions on uprooting it this week.
Zelenskiy's pledge came amidst allegations of senior-level corruption, including a report of dubious practices in military procurement despite officials promoting national unity to confront the invasion.
"I want this to be clear: there will be no return to what used to be in the past, to the way various people close to state institutions or those who spent their entire lives chasing a chair used to live," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
Ukraine has had a long history of rampant corruption and shaky governance, with Transparency International ranking the country's corruption at 122 of 180 countries, not much better than Russia in 2021.
The EU has made anti-corruption reforms one of its key requirements for Ukraine's membership after granting Kyiv the candidate status last year.
"This week will be the time for appropriate decisions," Zelenskiy said. "The decisions have already been prepared. I do not want to make them public at this time, but it will all be fair."
Elected by a landslide in 2019 on pledges to change the way the ex-Soviet state was governed, Zelenskiy said that his government had accepted the resignation of a deputy minister after an investigation into allegations he accepted a bribe.
He did not identify the official, but news reports have said an acting deputy minister of regional development, Vasyl Lozinskiy, was detained on allegations of accepting a bribe.
The renewed focus on corruption involved also Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov after a newspaper reported that the military had allegedly secured food at highly inflated prices.
Reznikov's ministry described the allegations as "false" and a parliamentary committee had been asked to investigate.
(Reporting by Maria Starkova; Writing by Ron Popeski; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
A top ally of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday corrupt officials would be rounded up and jailed as part of a zero tolerance policy, after the most high-profile graft allegations since Russia invaded burst into public view. Ukraine has a long history of battling corruption and shaky governance, though there had been few examples since Moscow's invasion last year as Kyiv has fought back Russian troops and received Western financial and military support. On Sunday, anti-corruption police said they had detained the deputy infrastructure minister on suspicion of receiving a $400,000 kickback to facilitate the import of generators into wartime Ukraine last September.
About 720 invading Russian troops were killed in Ukraine in the past 24 hours, with a total of about 121,480 of Russian soldiers killed in the full-scale war against Ukraine, the Ukrainian military's General Staff reported in its morning update on Facebook on Jan. 23.
Russian troops have tried to conduct an offensive in small groups in the south of Ukraine, in particular, in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, but were repelled and forced to retreat. Source: Yevhen Yerin, Head of the joint press centre for Ukraine's Defence Forces on the Tavriya front, on air of Suspilne, a public broadcaster Quote: "Currently, the enemy is making certain attempts in small groups to improve their tactical position.
Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian President, has tried to explain the absence of a document about the end of mobilisation in Russia. He has said that it is related to other tasks that the Ministry of Defence of Russia is currently carrying out and Putin's words about the end of mobilisation should be a reference point here.
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, claimed that "Russia will struggle, and there should be no illusions". Source: Medvedev on Telegram Quote: "The Ramstein meeting and allocation of heavy armament to Kyiv leave no doubt that our enemies will be trying to exhaust us for an indefinite amount of time, or better yet, to destroy us.
High-power microwave systems use bursts of energy to disrupt, degrade or destroy distant electronics.
STORY: The Ukrainian army also published drone footage on Sunday (January 22) showing the pummelled eastern frontline town of Bakhmut.The video showed impact craters amid residential areas, damaged high rise apartment blocks, and destroyed businesses as well as a ruined shopping mall in western Bakhmut.Reuters was able to confirm the locations in both videos from the buildings seen in the video which matched file and satellite imagery of the area.Current fighting is centred on the town of Bakhmut, where Russia's Wagner mercenaries and Ukrainian forces have been locked in battle.Germany's foreign intelligence service said the Ukrainian army is losing a three-digit number of soldiers every day around Bakhmut, news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday (January 20).
Daniel Swift, a former member of the U.S. Special Forces (SEAL) military unit, was killed in Ukraine on the frontline on Jan. 18, TIME reported, citing a statement by a representative of the U.S. Navy.
Russians have already started installing air defence systems in Novgorod Oblast, Russia. The air defence systems that will protect Russian President Vladimir Putin and his close circle have been spotted near his residence in Yashcherovo village in the Valday district.
American lawmakers on Sunday pushed the U.S. government to export M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine, saying that even sending a symbolic number to Kyiv would be enough to push European allies to do the same. Michael McCaul, the newly installed Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC's "This Week" that "just one" Abrams tank would be enough to prompt allies, notably Germany, to unlock their own tank inventories for the fight against Russia. "Even saying that we're going to put Abrams tanks in would be enough," he said.
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