Instead of just replacing the prime minister, Zelensky progressively removed all reformers from the cabinet, state-owned enterprises, and government agencies. His timing could not have been worse. The new prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, was competent enough in his response to the coronavirus crisis. Yet Ukraine is one of several countries in which bad actors have used the crises of the moment as an opportunity to covertly dismantle reforms, betting that there would be no pushback from a European Union focused on the pandemic and a United States preoccupied by its presidential election.
Zelensky did nothing while revanchist oligarchs and Russian propagandists attacked EU agreements as “external governance” and domestic reformers as Sorosyata ([George] Soros’s piglets). Worse, some of Zelensky’s new appointments – such as that of the chief prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova – fanned the flames. As Zelensky was elected to fight corruption, his Servant of the People party fared poorly in the October local elections. The party’s once-impressive majority in the national parliament seems certain to disintegrate. Smelling blood in the water, judges on the Constitutional Court have thrown out every vestige of reform they can find.[...]
The crisis partly results from the efforts that Ukrainian oligarchs and other anti-reform forces have made to rebuild their influence in the judiciary in 2019 and 2020. When Poroshenko was president, they were largely on the defensive, intent on resisting legal reforms at every stage. Zelensky’s first chief prosecutor, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, initially led a campaign against such resistance. He was not prepared to selectively prosecute leading figures of the Poroshenko era or the enemies of the oligarchs who backed Zelensky. In contrast, Venediktova appears to have shot the messenger – by harassing and laying charges against reformers, including Ryaboshapka.
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