“The infrastructure is there, but no results?” – discussion between Vlasenko and Bronevytskyi on anti-corruption reforms
24 December 2025 19:20
Numerous sociological surveys show that corruption is on the rise in Ukraine, which means that the anti-corruption reform can hardly be called successful. This was discussed on the YouTube channel "Komersant Ukrainian"
youTube channel, MP Serhiy Vlasenko said.
“The sociological surveys that are available to us all show that about 70% of Ukrainian citizens believe that corruption has only increased and taken on new forms in recent years. So I think that, unfortunately, what we have been doing has not led us to the result we wanted to get. The best anti-corruption infrastructure, but corruption is growing. Well, it doesn’t work that way,” he said.
Instead, former SAPO prosecutor Stanislav Bronevytskyi believes that the anti-corruption reform should be evaluated primarily by whether Ukraine has managed to build a coherent institutional system – from prevention and investigation to prosecutorial oversight and a specialized court.
Bronevytsky added that anti-corruption bodies in Ukraine were created after the Revolution of Dignity with a clear goal – to punish the so-called “top corruption” and ensure inevitable responsibility for the highest officials. However, despite public expectations, there is still a lack of results in the form of real convictions.
“These bodies were created to ensure the inevitability of punishment for those who were called top corruption or “big fish” in 2014-2015. If we talk about effectiveness in terms of convictions and actual prosecution of people, I believe that the expectations of society, the public and the state that existed at the time of the creation of the anti-corruption infrastructure have not been met,” he said.
From this point of view, Bronevytskyi is convinced that the reform has yielded results, as it has changed the state’s approach to fighting corruption and the logic of pre-trial investigation and judicial control.
“I believe that the reform has been successful. Why? We have created an isolated anti-corruption model that is unique. We have created a prevention body, we have created a pre-trial investigation body, we have created prosecutorial oversight in the form of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the High Anti-Corruption Court. Speaking from this point of view, I believe that the reform has been successful. This is a paradigm shift, a change in the form of pre-trial investigation, prevention of criminal corruption offenses and, accordingly, ensuring judicial control at the pre-trial investigation stage, as well as, accordingly, the judicial review of indictments on the merits. From this point of view, I believe the reform has been a success,” he said.
Over the past six years, funding for Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies has been steadily increasing, especially after 2022. The NABU budget increased from UAH 0.92 billion in 2020 to the planned UAH 2.18 billion in 2025. Spending on the NACP increased from UAH 0.69 billion to UAH 1.48 billion in 2025.
After cuts in 2021-2022, the SAPO funding increased to UAH 0.34 billion in 2025.
Expenditures for the High Anti-Corruption Court increased from UAH 0.29 billion in 2022-2023 to UAH 0.51 billion in 2025.
