$70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a trans opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a trans comic book in Peru – USAID’s spending reads like farce. Yet the new US administration’s denunciation of the organization omitted its crowning absurdity: funding Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).
It may seem more worthy on the surface. But the National Anti-Corruption Bureau has, in reality, shed its prefix. Founded with good intentions in 2016, it has morphed into a clearinghouse for corruption and a vehicle to pursue Zelensky’s political opponents.
While USAID programs are often lampooned as the excesses of progressive lunacy, its funding of NABU is complete goal inversion. Given the corrupt inflection of almost every Ukrainian institution when the “little green men” first crossed the border, NABU’s establishment was a prerequisite for unlocking Western aid. USAID funds the agency both through direct budgetary support – totaling $30 billion since the start of the war – and via technical assistance programs, such as training its managers and detectives. But it funds the very corruption it was meant to combat.
NABU’s casebook bears the imprimatur of Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff. It reads like a catalogue of political threats – whether present or potential – to the President or Yermak himself. Having consolidated his power within the President’s office, he is now widely regarded as the second most powerful figure in the country, exerting vast influence over its institutions, law enforcement, and security apparatus. Allegations of political motivations behind NABU’s cases are routinely dismissed as Kremlin-backed disinformation. Yet the pattern of targeting Western-aligned reformers – those with electoral traction in Ukraine – remains striking.
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Andriy Koboliev, the former CEO of Naftogaz, played a pivotal role in overhauling Ukraine’s state-owned gas company, bringing transparency, efficiency, and reducing reliance on Russian gas. Under his leadership, Naftogaz was transformed from a loss-making entity to the country’s top revenue generator, supplying 15% of Ukraine’s total state revenue. His bold reforms earned him widespread respect from international financial institutions and Ukraine’s Western allies.
Yet NABU pursued him over a $10 million bonus he had received. Naftogaz’s supervisory board had agreed to the 1% bonus as an incentive to take on an arbitration case against Gazprom. Koboliev secured victory and $4.6 billion for Ukrainian coffers. NABU’s charge was the misappropriation of funds.
Similarly, former Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Andriy Pivovarsky found himself in NABU’s crosshairs. He was tasked with deregulating the economy following the Euromaidan protests when the public demanded the dismantlement of corrupt state-controlled industries. In a bid to incentivize private investment in infrastructure, he allowed private firms to retain half their port fees for building new berths. Eight years later, his cabinet-approved policy had been whipped into a legal charge: depriving the state of $30 million in revenue– though there were no allegations of personal gain.
Bribes feature in neither case. Nor were their actions hidden – they were transparent and conducted publicly within their professional duties. This starkly contrasts NABU’s early investigations: $120 million embezzled in a state-owned gas scheme, bribes for illegal amber mining contracts, and the misappropriation of a bank stabilization bailout. In the shadows, in a backroom, under the table. Your full-fat corruption.
So what changed? Yermak’s rise to Zelensky’s Chief of Staff in 2020. From there, the weaponization of NABU escalated, following a purge of Zelensky’s inner circle that installed Yermak’s proteges as replacements. While questionable NABU cases were launched, serious corruption allegations of politically connected individuals swirling in the domestic media were either ignored or shut down.
Not least are those that implicate Yermak himself. Videos emerged of his brother selling positions in the presidential administration. NABU investigated the case, but at the end of 2021, it closed without public explanation. Both Yermaks deny wrongdoing, yet they have not denied the authenticity of the videos.
Enmity toward Yermak is widely shared amongst Ukrainians. Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, is damning in her brevity: “He is damaging the war effort.” Yet in the West, stories of his political interference in NABU go unreported. Any questioning of the orthodox view on Western funding for Ukraine was shut down on accusations of being a Russian stooge. Meanwhile, USAID money – at odds with itself – kept on flowing to NABU.
At best, the U.S. has bankrolled Zelensky’s re-election by eliminating rivals; at worst, it’s engineering a new breed of corrupt oligarchy – the very force that crippled Ukraine, to begin with. USAID disbursements are frozen for now, but aid continues to flow in other forms. Ironically, dismantling NABU should be a condition of its survival.
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