The Prosecutor General admitted that the pressure on business is real. Official statistics are unreliable because they are underestimated by three times
OPINION
on July 3, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko announced the results of the audit of criminal proceedings related to business. He did what his predecessors did not dare: he publicly admitted that the actual number of such cases is several times higher than the data that still appears in the public dashboard of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
According to the dashboard, there are 6249 cases. According to the results of the audit – more than 20 thousand. That is, the real scale is three times larger.
This is not just a technical inaccuracy. This is an official acknowledgment that public statistics misled business, society, and international partners.
Moratoriums and audits are good. But they are no substitute for a systemic solution
A week before the audit, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered the preparation of a new long-term moratorium on business inspections. This is the second moratorium since the beginning of 2024.
It’s the same with audits: a similar inventory was already conducted last year. The result? The problem has not disappeared.
All these are useful but temporary steps that do not change the logic of the system.
As long as there is no mechanism to prevent pressure on business, the situation will remain unchanged, regardless of the name of the Prosecutor General.
And there should have been a mechanism.
In January 2024, the National Security and Defense Council adopted a decision “On Urgent Measures to Ensure Economic Security,” which was put into effect by a presidential decree. This decision explicitly stipulated the need to create a mechanism to prevent pressure on business.
Therefore, the Prosecutor General, together with other authorities, was instructed to develop and implement such a mechanism.
In response, the Prosecutor General’s Office presented “updated standards of prosecutorial activity”, which were publicly presented as fulfilling this task. But:
- these “standards” have not become a real safeguard;
- they did not ensure any change in practice;
- and after a few months, even those who presented them stopped mentioning them.
It is obvious: the mechanism has not been created. And today’s audit is just a confirmation that the NSDC decision in this part has not been implemented.
Three cases that the whole country knows
Zozulya Yuriy, X-Park
The criminal proceedings have been going on for four years without charges. All property is under arrest. Access to investments is blocked. The business is virtually paralyzed – without a single court decision on the merits of the case.
Savva Libkin, a well-known Odesa restaurateur
She has been legally owning the property (Dacha restaurant) since 2018. The prosecutor’s office has been challenging this for three years and conducting criminal proceedings – despite numerous court victories and confirmation of legality by the State Property Fund.
Oleksandr Sokolovskyi, Textile-Contact
Two high-profile criminal proceedings in recent years. No verdict, no substantiated charges. But there were illegal searches, arrests, pressure, public campaigns.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
I know dozens of similar stories – with less high-profile names, but with the same logic: pressure, delays, no convictions, and complete irresponsibility of law enforcement.
We are talking about the actual obstruction of business activities in the context of a full-scale war, when the country’s economy is on the verge of survival, and every operating business means taxes, jobs and the state’s logistical capacity.
In such circumstances, systemic pressure on entrepreneurs is not just a problem of the business climate.
It is a threat to the economic security of the state. In other words, it is not a matter of comfort, but of national survival.
The reasons go deeper. The real reason is not just individual officials. The problem is that the interaction between the government and society is formally proclaimed but not actually implemented.
Such fundamental principles as:
- transparency
- accountability,
- accessibility,
- responsibility
– have not yet become real institutional standards in the work of law enforcement agencies.
Therefore, if we are talking about continuing the dialog between the state and business, the first task should be to put these principles into practice.
To do this, we need to amend the Criminal Procedure Code and improve the legislative and bylaw provisions governing the powers of law enforcement, the procedure for opening proceedings, and the control and evaluation of their actions.
Without this, no audits or moratoriums will change the systemic logic.
Conclusion. Audits are good. A moratorium is also good. But as long as there is no real mechanism to prevent pressure, the system will not change.
Business does not need another promise or a one-time “action”. Business needs protection that works regardless of the political will of one person.
That is why the business community must join forces to fully implement the NSDC decision, with a key focus on creating such a mechanism. Do not wait for changes from above, do not hope for another “principled prosecutor”. Instead, we should insist on a systemic solution that will make it impossible to interfere with business activities without justification.
We must pay tribute to Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko: within two weeks in office, he has researched and published real statistics. His predecessors could not do more than deny the existence of pressure. But the law enforcement system cannot depend on one person. Because changes do not happen when the Prosecutor General changes.
Changes occur when a decision is implemented and when the system no longer allows us to act in the old way.
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