The other war reporting from Ukraine

The country’s progress in ensuring equality before the law and curbing graft is as critical as the military counteroffensive.

The Monitor's View

One shock for Ukrainians from Russia’s invasion last year was that their once-brotherly neighbor did not see Ukraine as a sovereign equal. Moscow’s war has now reinforced Ukraine’s internal struggle to expand equality – in rule of law, between the sexes, even in taxes.

A decade before the war, only 3% of Ukrainians said the law is equal for everyone. Oligarchs were untouchable. Organized criminals acted with impunity. Yet after two democratic revolutions, the war, new tools for honest governance, and an invitation to join the European Union, Ukrainians have changed their attitude to ensure everyone is equal before the law.

This week President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced he would double down on curbing a prime source of inequality – official corruption – with new reforms that would harden punishments for corruption crimes. “We have to implement systemic changes,” he told an interviewer. “This is the way to fight corruption.” One example: Ukraine plans to offer a reward to whistleblowers who report corruption.

That legal front against graft is as critical and closely watched as the war front. In a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Ukrainians said curbing corruption is second in importance to winning the war. There’s a reason for their conviction. The share of people who consider corruption to be “very widespread” fell by more than 20 percentage points compared with 2018 and 2021.

“In the fight for Ukraine’s national identity,” stated a report this year by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, “transparency and accountability may be as important as missiles and artillery.”

The report also notes this: “With the war, collaboration between Russian and Ukrainian organized crime interests became impossible due to the political situation. ... Many Ukrainian crime bosses chose to leave the country, as did many oligarchs.”

Mr. Zelenskyy admits progress against corruption has been slow, yet made more urgent with almost monthly cases of corruption exposed in military recruitment and procurement as well as humanitarian aid. Still public trust in the police and anti-corruption bodies has risen.

In the war with Russia, Ukraine’s other front – a campaign for equality before the law – has made progress similar to that by the country’s military counteroffensive: slow but steady. War reporting isn’t always dodging bullets and telling tales from the battlefield. It is also tracking strategic shifts in thought.