SBU Promises to Get to High-Placed Corrupt Officials

In the first eleven months of this year the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) initiated 2108 criminal cases (vs. 1181 last year), and over UAH 519 million has been returned to the state budget, three times as much as last year, it was announced at a December 8 SBU briefing on the results in combating economic crime and corruption. Owing to special sanctions imposed on violators of laws governing foreign economic activities, over UAH 245 million worth of hard currency has been returned from abroad (UAH 13.6 million last year), and UAH 1.2-billion in fines have been imposed. This reflects both the more effective work of the relevant agencies and increased scale of economic crime.

SBU experts claim they have prevented the illegal alienation of property belonging to strategically important enterprises worth UAH 20.63 million and contributed to the abandonment of more than ten dubious projects, saving our native land around $900 million.

Finally, coming back to corruption, one of the scourges of our society, the SBU representatives named such figures as 609 criminal cases and 855 civil actions. However, according to SBU deputy chairman Lieutenant General Oleksandr Kosianenko, “corrupt high officials so far remain outside our attention.” In this connection, he promised to intensify the battle against corruption at all levels, which not only Ukraine’s foreign creditors but also our citizens are looking forward to.