Corruption in Ukraine
Corruption in Ukraine is a significant issue affecting society, rooted in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. After declaring independence, Ukraine faced a series of politicians from across the political spectrum, as well as criminal bosses and oligarchs, who exploited corruption within the police, political parties, and industry to gain power. While Ukraine is still considered one of the more corrupt countries in Europe, it has made steady progress in improving its standing since 2015.
History
The modern period of Ukrainian corruption can be traced back to the integration of individuals linked to Soviet organised crime into the nomenklatura in the 1980s.Following independence, Ukraine experienced a period of violent corruption throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. As Prime Minister from 1996 to 1997, Pavlo Lazarenko allegedly embezzled between US$114 million and 200 million. According to leaked diplomatic cables, United States officials described Ukraine under Presidents Kuchma and Yushchenko as a kleptocracy.
Driven by revenues from industry, tourism and ports, these issues were particularly acute in Donetsk Oblast. In 2005, mass graves containing the remains of businesspersons, judges, lawyers, and investigators were discovered in Donetsk. The regions' former governor, Viktor Yanukovych, and his Party of Regions were among many accused of maintaining close ties to organised crime. Despite this, Yanukovych was elected President in 2010. He was eventually overthrown during the 2014 Maidan Uprising, which began after he refused to sign a trade agreement with the European Union. Many protestors identified corruption as the main driver for their discontent. Because Yanukovych was considered more pro-Russian than his predecessors, Ukrainian nationalists argued that corruption was inherently linked to the country's relationship with Russia. Following the Maidan Revolution, corruption reforms achieved some success, reducing waste through police reform, public procurement changes, and the dissolution of certain state-owned industries. However, critics argued that this progress remained limited.
Ukraine has faced increased scrutiny regarding corruption due to the unprecedented financial aid provided during the Russian invasion. In 2023, several senior officials, including five provincial governors, were dismissed following a corruption scandal. Deputy Defense Minister Viacheslav Shapovalov resigned after a major procurement scandal, as did the deputy head of the President of Ukraine">President of Ukraine">President of Ukraine, Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Shortly before, a deputy minister at the Ministry of Infrastructure was sacked after being detained by anti-corruption agents while allegedly receiving a $400,000 bribe. Similar scandals persisted in subsequent years. Notably, the head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak resigned in 2025 after investigators raided his home during a corruption scandal. Two other members of the Zelensky cabinet were also dismissed.
Comparative research on corruption
In a 1995 survey by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, 42% of respondents stated that corruption "is a shameful phenomenon that has no objective grounds", while 36% viewed it as "a component of social traditions". Respondents from Southern and Western Ukraine more frequently characterised corruption as a "social tradition". In contrast, the view of corruption as a "shameful phenomenon" was more common in Central Ukraine and Eastern Ukraine.In 2012, Ernst & Young ranked Ukraine among the three most corrupt nations out of 43 surveyed, alongside Colombia and Brazil. In 2015, The Guardian labeled Ukraine "the most corrupt nation in Europe". By 2017, an Ernst & Young poll of experts ranked Ukraine ninth-most corrupt out of 53 surveyed nations.
Transparency International's 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored countries on a scale from 0 to 100, gave Ukraine a score of 35. This resulted in a rank of 105th among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For regional context, the best score in Eastern European and Central Asian countries was 53, the average score was 35 and the worst score was 17. Globally, the best score was 90, the average score was 43, and the worst was 8. Commenting on the 2023 data, Transparency International noted that Ukraine's score had improved steadily for 11 years, most recently increasing by three points from the 2022 score.
The focus on justice system reforms, including restructuring judicial self-governance bodies and increasing judicial independence, has been key. Efforts to strengthen the capacity and independence of its anti-corruption agency and its anti-corruption prosecution body – coupled with a national anti-corruption strategy and its comprehensive implementation programme – have provided a solid foundation for ongoing anti-corruption efforts.However, Transparency International noted that the high number of corruption cases currently being detected and prosecuted by these agencies indicate that significant work remains to be done.
In the 2010s, Ukrainian economist compared Ukrainian corruption to global trends using data from Transparency International. His research estimated that corruption levels in Ukraine were comparable to those in Sub-Saharan Africa, identifying Uganda as the country's closest counterpart.
Types of corruption
Corruption in Ukraine followed similar patterns to organized crime and political parties across the post-Soviet space.Bribery
In the 2000s, bribes were frequently paid to ensure that public services were delivered either on time or at all. Many Ukrainians stated they paid bribes because they believed it was customary and expected. Some of the largest recorded bribes exceeded US$1 million. According to a 2008 Management Systems International survey, the highest levels of corruption were identified in vehicle inspection services, the police, health care, the courts and higher education.In 2011, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych stated that corruption cost the state budget an estimated 2.5 billion in lost revenues annually, and that corrupt practices in public procurement resulted in 10% to 15% of the state budget ending up "in the pockets of officials".
According to the United States Agency for International Development in 2006, the main causes of corruption in Ukraine included a compromised justice system and an over-controlling, non-transparent government, alongside close times between business and political elites linked to Russia and a weakened civil society. Corruption has been a frequent topic of Ukrainian media coverage.
In 2016, the International Monetary Fund, medical and health services, and the education system. Repeated surveys conducted between 2000 and 2010 showed that a majority of Ukrainians self-reported engaging in corrupt transactions with government authorities.
In 2008, 21% of respondents reported that they or someone living in their household had paid a bribe in some form during the previous 12 months. In a 2001 survey conducted by GfK, 43% of respondents stated that they had never personally paid a bribe.
Political corruption
In the years following Ukrainian independence, election fraud was widespread, mainly through the use of so-called "administrative resources". At the same time, according to political analyst Taras Kuzio, election fraud in Ukraine was generally limited to no more than five percent of the total vote. Following the initial rounds of voting in the 2004 presidential election, the Supreme Court of Ukraine ruled that the scale of electoral fraud made it impossible to determine the election results and ordered a revote.Afterwards, instances of outright vote rigging declined, although politicians continued to allege election fraud, and the use of administrative tactics to secure additional votes for particular parties persisted. The Ukrainian electorate remained highly sceptical of the integrity of the electoral process. Under Ukrainian law, voters who engage in election fraud face a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment, although activists have stated that no one has been punished for voter fraud since Ukrain gained independence.
In the 2000s, United States diplomats claimed the privatization of several Ukrainian state enterprises was rigged in favor of political friends. On a regional level, corruption was discovered in connection with land allocation.
Around 2010, Ukrainian politicians regularly accused each other of corruption while claiming to fight it themselves. After going undercover in the Reforms for the Future parliamentary faction in early 2012, Roman Zabzaliuk claimed this faction "bought" its members for "500,000, and then they pay a monthly salary of $20,000–25,000"; in contrast, according to Reforms for the Future, Zabzalyuk had pretended he was "suffering a very serious disease" and the group had managed to raise some $100,000 for Zabzalyuk to undergo surgery in Israel.
Since 2011, the President, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Prime Minister, Prosecutor General, ministers and other Ukrainian top officials have been liable for prosecution for corruption. Since 2010, the Ukrainian press brought up thousands of examples of criminal cases in which state officials, as well as politicians and businessmen linked to the then-ruling Party of Regions, were shown leniency unprecedented for the general population of suspects.
Minister of Internal Affairs Vitaliy Zakharchenko stated in 2012 that since 2010, about 400 politicians had faced criminal charges in connection with corruption; most of them from the Party of Regions, followed by Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko and Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc members.
In the early 2010s Ukrainian media, particularly the Ukrayinska Pravda, regularly unveiled millionaire lifestyles of Ukrainian politicians and public servants, utterly at odds with their declared official incomes.
According to historian Andrew Wilson, as of 2016, progress in reducing corruption was poor. A 2015 survey showed that 72% of adults blamed "corruption of power" for the lack of progress in reform.
A 2016 requirement for MPs to declare their wealth led to a declared cumulative wealth of about $460 million for the 413 MPs. Reacting to public criticism, MPs cancelled a salary rise that would have doubled their monthly salary. This measure was part of an Anti-Corruption Package passed into law in 2014, which was a requirement of international financial support for Ukraine and a prerequisite to eligibility for visa-free travel within the European Union.
Local politics
In the early 21st century, several Ukrainian mayors were suspected of using their posts to serve their own business interests.In 2013, Serhiy Odarych, former mayor of Cherkasy, was suspected of causing a ₴600,000 loss to the city budget.
Judicial corruption
In the early 2010s, Ukrainian politicians and analysts described the system of justice in Ukraine as "rotten to the core" and complained about political pressure put on judges and corruption. Independent lawyers and human rights activists complained that Ukrainian judges regularly came under pressure to hand down a certain verdict. Ukraine's court system was widely regarded as corrupt. A Ukrainian Justice Ministry survey in 2009 revealed that only 10% of respondents trusted the nation's court system. Less than 30% believed that it was still possible to get a fair trial. Although judicial independence exists in principle, in practice there was little separation of juridical and political powers. Judges were subjected to pressure from political and business interests.A 2017 Reuters article quoted then-PM Volodymyr Groysman, saying that "the weakest link in our fight against corruption is the Ukrainian court"; giving an example of 30 judges "with annual salaries ranging from US$10,000–13,000" who owned Porsches. As another example, in 2012, Volodymyr Rokytskyi, Deputy Head of Ukraine's Security Service, was photographed in public wearing a 32,000 luxury wristwatch—even though its price amounted to his yearly official income—at a joint Ukrainian-American event dedicated to fighting illegal drugs. In the 2010s Ukrainian judges were arrested while taking bribes.
In the early 2010s critics also complained that officials and their children received favourable sentences compared with common citizens.
Kyiv Post reported in 2018 that several candidates for a post in the new High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine were themselves suspected/associated with corruption. AutoMaidan, Dejure and the Anti-corruption Action Center criticised the Ethics Council's June 2022 decisions in nominations to and exclusions from the High Council of Justice as including judges tainted in relation to corruption and as unfairly excluding the anti-corruption whistleblower judge Larysa Golnyk.
In May 2023, on the orders of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the President of the Supreme Court of Ukraine Vsevolod Kniaziev was detained while allegedly receiving a bribe. Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Service and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office reported on their social media accounts about allegations of corruption in the country's Supreme Court of Ukraine. Anti-Corruption officials said that, "NABU and SAP have uncovered massive corruption in the Supreme Court, specifically plans to profit unfairly from the Supreme Court leadership and judges."
Corruption in the public sector
In 2016, many of Ukraine's major provincial highways were in very poor condition, with an Ukravtodor official stating that 97% of roads needed repair. The road repair budget was set at about ₴20 billion, but corruption caused the budget to be poorly spent.Energoatom
In 2015, corruption allegations were made against Energoatom, Ukraine's state nuclear power operator. In 2016, Energoatom's assets and bank accounts were frozen by Ukrainian courts over allegedly unpaid debts, which Energoatom appealed. In June 2016, its bank accounts were unfrozen.On 12 November 2025, a National Anti‑Corruption Bureau of Ukraine investigation into an alleged Energoatom US$100 million kickback scheme led to the resignation of Justice Minister German Galushchenko, the resignation of Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk, and the dismissal of Energoatom's supervisory board. Grynchuk was Galushchenko's deputy Energy Minister and succeeded him. The scheme was uncovered by a 15-month investigation, code-named "Midas", which included 1,000 hours of audio recordings and about 70 search operations. Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko first announced only Galushchenko's suspension, but hours later, President Zelenskyy called for the resignation of both Galushchenko and Grynchuk. Both quickly complied.
The investigation alleges that contractors supplying services or goods to Energoatom were forced to pay kickbacks. Among the seven suspects named by prosecutors is Timur Mindich, a businessman and former associate of President Zelenskyy. Mindich co-owned the entertainment company Kvartal 95 with Zelenskyy prior to the latter's election to the presidency. Also named were Galushchenko adviser Ihor Myronyuk and Dmytro Basov, executive director for security at Energoatom. Galushchenko himself was not one of the seven suspects named.
President Zelenskyy stated on his official Telegram channel that the Justice Minister and the Energy Minister "could not remain in their positions" in light of the allegations, "as a matter of trust". Zelenskyy stressed that given the hardships faced by Ukrainians as a result of the ongoing Russian attacks on the country's energy infrastructure, "It is absolutely unacceptable that there are still some schemes in the energy sector."
The Economy Ministry announced that a new supervisory board for Energoatom would be named within a week, and that the Group of Seven countries would be consulted while the new board was formed. Energoatom would undergo an audit which would be reviewed by law enforcement officials.
On 28 November 2025, investigators raided the home of presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak; President Zelenskyy dismissed him later that day. Reports indicated that Yermak had played a central role in July 2025 efforts to curtail the independence of anti-corruption bodies, allegedly to obstruct the Energoatom investigation; protests forced the government to reverse course within days. Internal polling shared with The Economist suggested that trust in Zelenskyy had fallen by half since the NABU revelations.
Corruption in higher education
In the 2000s and 2010s, higher education in Ukraine was plagued by bribery. In 2011, 33% of all students claimed they had encountered corruption in their school, 29% heard about cases of corruption from other students, while 38% had not encountered corruption. According to Transparency International research done in 2008, 47.3% of university students stated that a bribe had been demanded from them; of those, 29% had paid this bribe freely. Students paid bribes for admission to a college, for exam results, and to get their doctoral or master's theses evaluated.Bribes ranged from US$10 to US$50 for an exam pass to several thousand for entry to a university. According to government sources, bribes varied from US$80 to US$21,500. Salaries of teachers and professors were low in Ukraine compared with other professions; this may have tempted them to demand bribes. According to Ararat Osipian, entire corruption hierarchies formed in Ukraine's colleges and universities. These hierarchies evolved from the 1990s as a result of uncontrolled and rampant corruption. Ararat claimed in 2010 that corrupt ruling regimes control corrupt universities and force them into compliance, including during the elections. This was aided by universities largely still having Stalinist-type bureaucracies, unable to transform.
Until 2015, university autonomy was nonexistent. In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed a new law on higher education to give universities more autonomy, including control over their own finances. The aim was to encourage private investment, fundraising and the creation of endowments.
In the 2000s, Ukrainian government officials were caught with fake university diplomas.
Corruption in the Social Security System
In 2012, President Viktor Yanukovych reported that only about 23 percent of social service funds go to those who actually need them. The Ukrainian media featured many stories revealing that even parliamentarians illegally received social benefits, fraudulently claiming to be war and Chornobyl veterans.Corruption in healthcare
Though medical care in state-run hospitals is theoretically free for Ukrainians, patients paying out of pocket to ensure they receive the treatment required was widespread in the early 21st century. In 2012, advocacy groups accused Health Ministry officials of embezzling money that should have been used to treat AIDS patients by buying AIDS drugs at hugely inflated prices and then receiving kickbacks.Corruption and business
In 2011, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development stated corruption was a "significant obstacle" to doing business in Ukraine.Research conducted by Ernst & Young in 2011 and 2012 showed that the practice of top managers accepting bribes increased by 9 percent in 2011 and 15 percent in 2012. Another 4 percent were ready to pay bribes in order to hide the details of their financial performance.
In 2016, politician Natalia Korolevska estimated that, "Corruption has forced business to go in the shadow where now we have 45% of our economy."
In the early 2010s, the representative of a United Kingdom-based company claimed non-Ukrainian companies often lost contracts if they did not pay bribes or failed to "out-bribe" their competitors. Ukrainians and business representatives claimed that "Business ventures above a certain level require palm-greasing of some functionary at some level."
Costs of corruption
According to Ararat Osipian, due to endemic corruption, Ukraine failed to sustain its economic growth trends in the 2000s. The corruption, perceived as reckless, that marked President Viktor Yanukovich's rule contributed to his downfall in 2014 and left the country's army ill-equipped to counter Russia's invasion of Crimea.In 2008, Transparency International estimated that 30 to 50 percent of all Ukrainians had faced government corruption. Juhani Grossmann claimed in 2009 that "Ukrainians pay roughly ₴3.5 billion, or more than US$400 million, in bribes annually." The previous year, he claimed that the figure was US$700 million.
Anti-corruption procedures and institutions
After his election in late 2004, President Viktor Yushchenko promised a "War on Corruption". Several officials were indeed arrested and/or questioned in early 2005.Oleksandr Turchynov, former chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine, claimed that in the summer of 2005 Yushchenko prevented an investigation into allegedly fraudulent practices in the transport of Turkmen natural gas to Ukraine and prevented the arrest of Boyko for abuse of office while heading Naftogaz: In a 2005 interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, "Turchynov stated that Yushchenko told him in mid-August to stop 'persecuting my men' and that the investigation of RosUkrEnergo was 'creating a conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putin'." A 2008 survey showed that 73% of people in Ukraine considered the second Tymoshenko Government's actions against corruption ineffective; comparable figures for the U.S. and the UK were 73% and 39%. In a survey in 2001, when Kuchma was president, 80% of Ukrainians "totally/fairly agreed" with the statement: "The present government has no real interest in punishing corruption."
Ukraine joined the Group of States Against Corruption in 2006.
Over the years, several anti-corruption laws have been passed by the Ukrainian parliament. In September 2011 the National Anti-Corruption Committee was introduced.
Like his predecessor Yushchenko, President Viktor Yanukovych made the fight against corruption a spearhead in his domestic policies. Political opponents of Yanukovych accused him of using his anti-corruption campaign for politically motivated trials; the general public in Ukraine largely shared this view. President Yanukovych denied this.
The International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities spoke in April 2011 of "remarkable successes in fighting corruption in 2010". The EU Ambassador to Ukraine, Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira, stated at an investment conference on February 28, 2012, that Yanukovych's pledges of reform "have regrettably produced no such results".
In May 2014, an Anti-Corruption Initiative was established. In December, it appointed Lithuanian economist and former European Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union, Audit and Anti-Fraud Algirdas Šemeta as Business Ombudsman.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, for carrying out investigations of corruption, was established in March 2015 after its predecessor, the National Anti-Corruption Committee, was considered a failure. For designing and implementing systematic change tending to prevent corruption, the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption was created in 2015.
In 2015, President Petro Poroshenko sacked Ihor Kolomoisky — the billionaire governor of the key industrial region of Dnipropetrovsk — after armed men suspected of links to Kolomoisky briefly occupied the offices of a state-owned oil firm in Kyiv.
In 2018, a law came into force requiring that cases concerning corruption be brought directly to the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine. In June 2018 President Poroshenko expected the court to be established before the end of 2018. In 2019 the High Anti-Corruption Court did start to work.
Due to the IMF concern that oligarchs would use the courts to seize bailout money, parliament passed a bill in 2020 to prevent courts from reversing bank nationalizations. The bill would combat a lawsuit by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky and others seeking to regain control of PrivatBank, the recipient of a $5.5 billion 2016 bailout and an alleged "money laundering machine" under Kolomoisky.
In 2020, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled that anti-corruption legislation, including the mandatory electronic declaration of income, was unconstitutional. President Zelensky warned that if parliament did not restore these anti-corruption laws, foreign aid, loans and visa-free travel to the European Union were at risk. The Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine reported that Ukraine would not receive the scheduled $700 million IMF loan before the end of 2020 because of the issue. IMF assessment teams had not visited Kyiv for eight months. A visit was necessary for further IMF loan tranches to be released.
On 4 December 2020, the Ukrainian parliament restored anti-corruption legislation shut down by the court decision, when it reauthorised criminal penalties for officials who provide false information about their incomes. On 29 December 2020, President Volodymyr Zelensky suspended the Constitutional Court's chairperson Oleksandr Tupytskyi for two months to overturn the court's October 2020 decision.
On 19 July 2022, a commission created for selecting a new head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office via an open competition procedure announced Oleksandr Klymenko as the winner of the competition, out of 37 candidates.
Public perception
According to Ukrainians, the most corrupt in the early 2010s were the judiciary, the police, public servants, the health service and parliament. A Gallup opinion poll in 2025 found that 85% of Ukrainians believed corruption was widespread throughout their government, little changed from previous years which averaged 84% from 2007 to 2024.Corruption Perceptions Index ratings
Transparency International produces an annual report listing each country's Corruption Perceptions Index score. This score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts and, through 2011, ranged from 10 to 0. From 2012 on, the scores were presented on a 0–100 scale.The following table lists Ukraine's place in the Corruption Perceptions Index table, based on Transparency International's annual reports from 1999 onward. The method used to compute the scores changed in 2012 to allow a country's score to be compared from year to year. Prior to 2012, a country's score can only be meaningfully compared to the scores of other countries in the same year.
Note: For 1999 and 2000, the data were listed as 1998 and 1999 respectively. From 2001, the data listed are stated to be for the year of the annual report. Up to 2005, the annual report included some measures of the uncertainty of the index scores; these data were omitted from the annual reports from 2006 onwards, but were contained in the CPI report.