Mindichgate will affect level of aid to Ukraine - Atlantic Council expert Karatnytskyi

Adrian Karatnycky, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former president of Freedom House, believes that the corruption scandal in Ukraine may affect the scale of economic support, but it will not significantly affect the volume of military aid.

He stated this in an interview with Ukrinform, according to Censor.NET.

Defence and economic support

"I believe that this may affect the level of support. I don't think it will lead to the cessation of aid — the bigger problem may be the flow of aid into the Ukrainian economy, but not military support," the expert said.

There may be more delays and a desire to see control mechanisms, he added.

According to Karatnytskyi, there is growing concern in the West because "so many ministries and so many segments of the government have been found to be riddled with high levels of corruption and, to some extent, even ties to Russia and Russian intelligence."

Zelenskyy's decisive measures

In his opinion, the Ukrainian president has the opportunity to prevent some of these problems by taking decisive measures that will show that "he is not obstructing investigations and is using his instruments of influence to cooperate fully with them," and that he is ready for changes in the government and "a completely new combination of forces, which will require consultations with reformers, anti-corruption groups, civil society, the volunteer sector and the democratic patriotic opposition."

Karatnytsky clarified that he meant the need to include technocrats and specialists who were not involved in corruption schemes in the government.

Mindichgate

Earlier, Censor.NET reported that NABU was conducting searches at Mindich's residence, who left Ukraine a few hours before the searches.
As reported, on Tuesday, 4 November, searches were conducted in one of the branches of the separate divisions of NAEK Energoatom in connection with a corruption case.
NABU is also conducting searches at the home of former Energy Minister Halushchenko and at Energoatom.
NABU and SAPO announced a large-scale operation to expose corruption in the energy sector.
The current Minister of Energy, Svitlana Hrynychuk, appears in NABU recordings as part of the investigation into corruption in the energy sector.
Subsequently, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau exposed an office in central Kyiv belonging to the family of former MP and current Russian Senator Andrii Derkach. There, they kept "black accounts," recorded money, and organised money laundering.
On 11 November, NABU released recordings featuring Minister Halushchenko and Mindich.
Chernyshov has been notified of suspicion of illegal enrichment as part of Operation Midas.
One of the suspects, Dmytro Basov, was remanded in custody with bail set at 40 million hryvnia.
Halushchenko's former adviser Myroniuk was remanded in custody with bail set at UAH 126 million.
The Cabinet of Ministers submitted proposals to the National Security and Defence Council to impose personal sanctions on Timur Mindich and Oleksandr Tsukerman following a NABU investigation into corruption in the energy sector.
Earlier, Ihor Myronyuk and the executive director of security at Energoatom, Dmytro Basov, who appeared in NABU's videos under the nickname Tenor, were remanded in custody for 60 days.
Another suspect, Lesya Ustymenko, was also remanded in custody for 60 days.
The High Anti-Corruption Court chose a preventive measure for Ihor Fursenko (known as Ryoshik in NABU recordings), a suspect in a case of corruption in the energy sector.
On 13 November, the High Anti-Corruption Court arrested Lyudmila Zorina, with bail set at 12 million hryvnia.
Zelenskyy imposed sanctions against Mindich and Zuckerman.