Editorial: Zelensky just betrayed Ukraine's democracy — and everyone fighting for it

Editor’s note: This editorial has been updated to reflect the fact Zelensky signed the bill into law on the evening of July 22, as shown on the Parliament's website.

Last week, we warned of a coming anti-democratic backslide. Now, we see it happening.

A parliamentary vote, led by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s lawmakers, today took away the independence of Ukraine’s key anti-corruption bodies — the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). Zelensky signed it into law the same day.

Under the new law, the prosecutor general, a notoriously non-independent figure, will now oversee anti-corruption investigations — in a complete overturn of the system that was set up to be independent from other law enforcement bodies.

In reality, it means that Zelensky’s office will be able to stop investigations with a phone call.

The move isn’t an isolated incident, but part of a massive crackdown.

The vote in parliament followed an unprecedented wave of raids on dozens of NABU officers’ homes the day before, where pretexts for searches ranged from drug trafficking accusations to car accidents from four years ago. The NABU chief said some searches got violent. A local media outlet reported that officers forced open a NABU detective’s eyes to unlock his phone, set on face recognition.

It also closely follows an escalated prosecution of Ukraine’s best-known anti-corruption activist, an outspoken critic of Zelensky.

This crackdown is being carried out by law enforcement agencies, lawmakers, and people controlled by President Zelensky. There is no second-guessing who is responsible for this.

President Zelensky is making a choice to undermine Ukrainian democratic institutions in pursuit of expanding his personal power.

Why do it now? The attacked anti-corruption agencies have been a nuisance for the political elite — as they should be. They have investigated Zelensky’s party’s lawmakers and the president’s close associates. But just weeks ago, they went after his personal friend, then-Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, making him a suspect in a land grab case. There is talk of other close associates of Zelensky that detectives were investigating.

In other words, they were doing exactly what they were set up for: independently investigating top-level corruption.

It’s worth remembering that Ukraine’s anti-corruption infrastructure was set up in the years following the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution. It was one of the wins of the democratic, pro-Western movement that overthrew the corrupt pro-Russian president. Over 100 protesters were killed before the revolution prevailed.

It took the lives of those protesters, and years of work that followed, to set up independent anti-corruption infrastructure in Ukraine — a major achievement for the young democracy.

Now, President Zelensky is seeking to dismantle it to protect his associates and expand his power.

The backdrop of the war is hugely helpful for this matter. Under martial law, there are no elections, and perhaps more importantly, there have been no mass street protests. Many of the most politically active Ukrainians, patriotic and uncompromising, are serving on the front lines or have been killed fighting. (The first anti-government protests since the start of the war are taking place right now, as we are running this editorial — they are a reaction to today’s vote, and have likely slowed down Zelensky’s signing of the bill.)

But there is one other source of oversight: the West. And it needs to use its leverage to help Ukraine stay a democracy.

Historically, Ukraine’s Western partners — the U.S. and the EU — have been a key force pushing reluctant Ukrainian officials to carry out reforms, including in the anti-corruption and law enforcement sector, using the leverage of financial aid to condition Ukrainians to move. It was a simple deal: Western aid comes in return for democratic progress.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s partners have largely refrained from pushing for reforms.

The war — and having a smooth relationship with Ukraine’s leadership — have been made a priority. When a conversation is already awkward due to refusal to supply the requested weapons, the West is reluctant to further sour it with nods at failed reforms. Supporting democracy in Ukraine is a task that can wait till after the war — that seemed to be the approach.  

This strategy has proved wrong, and it has led to today’s dangerous backslide.

The lack of interest from across the ocean has played a key role, too. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration isn’t one to defend anti-corruption reforms, and only reluctantly pays attention to Ukraine at all.

Evidently, certain actors in Ukraine perceived it as a free pass from Washington.

It’s not too late for Western partners to step in. It is possible to condition Ukrainian leadership in a way that protects democracy but doesn’t undermine Ukraine’s defense against Russia.

Military aid to Ukraine shouldn’t be conditioned — the survival of Ukraine and its defenders remains the number one priority. But it will be hard for foreign governments to find domestic support for such aid if Ukraine is allowed to slide into autocracy. The same man who represents Ukraine’s fight against Russia can’t represent the destruction of Ukraine’s democracy.

Every true supporter of Ukraine in Western governments needs to signal to Ukrainian leadership that the backslide is noted and won’t go without consequences.

If there is no such reaction, there is no reason to think that the backslide will stop. There are other elements of the anti-corruption infrastructure that can be dismantled, such as the High Anti-Corruption Court.

And next on the menu? Independent Ukrainian media.

Ukraine’s democracy can still be salvaged. In peacetime, that responsibility would fall on the Ukrainian people.

But today, Ukrainians are fighting — and dying — for Europe and the whole free world.

Will the West hold the line for them?

‘Point of no return’ — Ukraine’s democracy under threat as new bill guts anti-corruption efforts

“Dark times ahead.” “Peak of corruption.” “Point of no return.” Ukrainian society sounded a code red for the country’s democracy on July 22, as the final votes were tallied on a bill in Ukraine’s parliament that strips independence from anti-corruption bodies. Many described the new legislative changes as gutting a decade of hard-fought reforms and reverting to the notorious era of high corruption under former President Viktor Yanukovych that sparked the deadly EuroMaidan protests in 2013-2014

The Kyiv IndependentAndrea Januta