This is Anastasia Radina: when last summer, the then Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksi Reznikov, was hit by a new case of alleged fraud in the purchase of material for the army, Radina (Kiev, 39 years old), at the head of the Parliament's Anti-Corruption Committee called for accountability.
Reznikov challenged her to prove her accusations or resign from her.
On the contrary, on August 26, the deputy for the Servant of the People party, that of President Volodymyr Zelensky, gave him 48 hours to prove that the material in question had not been purchased from the nephew of a parliamentarian, without a tender and at triple the due price.
Reznikov lasted 10 days in office before resigning.
Radina is still in the position.
Graduate in Law and with a long career as an anti-corruption activist until reaching the chamber after the 2019 elections, Radina, married and mother of a child, attends the interview in the lobby of a hotel in the capital next to the Verkhovna Rada, the Parliament Ukrainian.
These days, local media are covering the illegal surveillance scandal of the publication Bihus.Info, dedicated to investigating corruption.
Radina expresses seriously and firmly that the work of journalists is essential to denounce this scourge.
“People pay attention to them,” she says.
According to data provided by the Radina team, in the period 2016-2023, the work of all anti-corruption organizations has allowed the recovery of 182 million euros.
Since February 2022, the agency, the prosecutor's office and the high anti-corruption court have transferred around 50 million of what was collected to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which are defending the country from the Russian invasion.
Ask
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He entered the Ukrainian Parliament five years ago.
Is Ukraine less corrupt than then?
Answer
.
Ukraine is very different from the country we inherited after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. I often hear references to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.
It is important to be precise: this index is not about how corrupt a country is, but about what the population thinks about it.
And I would say that the perception of Ukraine also reflects the work that investigative journalists are doing.
Before 2014, the corruption perception index in Ukraine was not high.
We had a Government that was half Government, half criminal group, with an organized system to embezzle more than half of the state budget for the benefit of a family.
And Ukraine was not perceived by the population as very corrupt.
P.
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Because?
R.
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Because when you turned on the television or the radio, you didn't hear about corruption in Ukraine.
When freedom of expression has been restored, when journalists and investigative media have assumed control, the population begins to talk about corruption.
Scandals have broken out, something that did not happen in the time of [President Viktor Yanukovych (2010-2014)].
I think it is good that the population is aware that corruption is a problem because that is how politicians are put under pressure.
It is positive that this awareness exists in public opinion.
Opinion polls since 2016 have consistently shown that corruption is one of the three big national problems that people expect politicians to address.
This is what helped us push anti-corruption reform.
P.
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Is the way society judges corruption changing?
R.
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Absolutely.
A growing number of Ukrainians, 86%, say corruption is unacceptable.
The level of tolerance has been decreasing since the Revolution of Dignity.
A number of reforms have also been implemented to address petty corruption, which is not about people wanting to pay bribes, but about not having accessible services or understandable procedures.
For example, when you have the opportunity to include your children online on a waiting list to go to daycare without having to pay money.
For political corruption, independent institutions have been set up from scratch, without the legacy of old systems inherited from the Soviet Union.
There has been success in establishing specialized anti-corruption institutions: an independent preventive agency, an investigation agency, a prosecutor's office and even a high court.
And this is what sends a message to the entire system that there are no untouchable people and that corruption is finally becoming punishable, something that did not happen before 2014.
P.
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How important is it to fight corruption when fighting a war against Russia?
R.
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I would say it is equally important because people fight for the country that offers freedom, rule of law and justice.
Our job as politicians is to guarantee the type of country they fight for.
P.
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What is the main concern of the Anti-Corruption Committee?
R.
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It is ensuring that anti-corruption institutions have mandates, powers and resources to act correctly and independently.
In reality, I don't know of any country that has gone this far, sacrificing even some government sovereignty to ensure that these institutions are truly independent of any vested interests or politicians.
At the same time, we have a broader mandate in parliamentary oversight.
We investigate, for example, cases presented by investigative journalists regarding alleged inflated prices and procurement by the [Ministry of] Defense.
What we did after the scandal broke out [in the purchase of material during Minister Reznikov's tenure] was to present a legal initiative to introduce transparency in military procurement.
This legislation was passed in just a few months, at a very fast pace for the Ukrainian Parliament.
P.
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How long does Ukraine need for real change?
R.
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Frankly, this change is already happening.
I can give you some numbers: the anti-corruption court, which has been in operation for four years, has already sentenced 27 judges [in the previous period there is only one record of a sentence in 2009, against Ihor Zvarych, a magistrate in Lviv].
If this doesn't show that the system is changing... It is important not only because there are people who are serving their sentence in prison, but because judges were considered untouchable for many years.
The anti-corruption mechanism is beginning to play a preventive role, which is what we dreamed of in 2014 and 2015.
P.
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Has she felt threatened by her work?
R.
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I wouldn't say I've felt any danger.
I have a great reputation as a no-deals person.
IM proud of that.
But just four years ago, we saw how civil society activists were harassed, even burning their houses, receiving threats.
P.
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Is it still happening or is this also disappearing?
R.
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The question is: are there individuals or groups of people who would want to use these outdated methods?
Unfortunately yes.
We have the case of illegal surveillance of journalists [of the anti-corruption media Bihus.info].
There has been a reaction and no one has said it was okay.
The important thing is that the authorities now investigate this case because there is criminal responsibility.
It is the same as the case of supposedly inflated prices in purchases with public money.
There are still people who think they can do it, but we also have a system created with rules and institutions to respond to that.
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