Ukraine’s flagship anti-corruption reforms have slowed and, in several areas, gone into reverse, raising concern among European partners, the IMF and civil society about political interference, judicial stalling and missed EU‑linked reform deadlines.
Key agencies remain vulnerable to political pressure, controversial laws have had to be reversed after protests, and delays in key appointments and strategies are feeding doubts over Ukraine’s commitment to cleaning up governance while fighting a full‑scale war.
Ukraine’s anti-corruption push, once hailed as a post‑Maidan success story and central to Kyiv’s bid to join the European Union, is now widely seen as stalled, with crucial reforms delayed, judicial follow‑up weak and political resistance hardening even as Western partners tie financial lifelines to measurable progress.
Background: reforms born from revolution and war
Following the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine created a new generation of anti‑corruption bodies, including the National Anti‑Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the Specialised Anti‑Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), and later the High Anti‑Corruption Court, under pressure from domestic activists and Western partners.
As noted in an OECD assessment of anti‑corruption reforms in Ukraine, the authorities also drafted a national Anti‑Corruption Strategy intended to target key risk areas and coordinate policy across government, though its formal adoption repeatedly stalled in parliament.
According to a chapter on Ukraine’s reform struggle published by Chatham House, elements of what it termed Ukraine’s “deep state” quickly regrouped to dilute or block reforms that threatened entrenched interests, with particular resistance around establishing an independent judiciary and overhauling the Prosecutor General’s Office.
The same analysis described how early gains such as electronic asset declarations for officials were undermined when the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) was accused by civil society and donors of delaying checks and obstructing potential cases for NABU.
Current pressure: EU accession and IMF conditions
As reported in a 2025 country‑risk briefing by Fitch Solutions, Ukraine’s reform trajectory now sits under the microscope of two major financial frameworks: an IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) worth 15.5 billion dollars and the EU’s 50‑billion‑euro Ukraine Facility, both of which link disbursements to governance and anti‑corruption benchmarks.
Fitch analysts wrote that Ukraine had “largely met IMF benchmarks,” with the fund completing its eighth review in June 2025 and disbursing around 0.5 billion dollars after Kyiv met all end‑March quantitative performance criteria and submitted a reform plan for the State Customs Service.
However, in the same report Fitch Solutions warned that performance under the EU’s Ukraine Facility was “uneven,” highlighting missed reform deadlines in the first half of 2025 and noting that failure to meet specific milestones put up to 2.5 billion euros at risk.
The briefing underlined delays in appointing a permanent head of the State Customs Service as a structural weakness, quoting IMF staff as saying that “given persistent delays in this reform, staff sees considerable risks to its timely completion,” even as the fund granted a six‑month extension.
Fitch Solutions concluded that, despite these shortcomings, it still expected “near‑full disbursement” of EU funds because European strategic interests, particularly after the withdrawal of US aid, made Brussels more likely to show flexibility than to suspend support outright.
Nonetheless, the report stressed that “worsening reform performance” and legislative deadlock were raising “a considerable risk” that Ukraine would not ultimately receive all of the money foreseen under the Ukraine Facility, especially if delays persisted.
Investigative focus: stalled cases and politicised appointments
In an OECD review of Ukraine’s anti‑corruption architecture, experts described how the process of appointing a new head for key institutions such as SAPO had been “stalled,” warning that delays appeared politically motivated and aimed at preventing the office from fully regaining its independence.
The same document said there was a “growing negative trend” whereby cases were diverted away from NABU and SAPO “without any apparent legal justification,” raising fears that sensitive investigations were being shielded from independent scrutiny.
The OECD report also found that the appointment and dismissal of the Prosecutor General remained neither objective nor transparent, with prosecutorial governance bodies sidelined and many stakeholders perceiving these decisions as “entirely politically motivated.”
It added that the draft national Anti‑Corruption Strategy, although evidence‑based and shaped by wide public consultation, had been left pending after a first reading in parliament in November 2020, hampering coordination and monitoring of reforms.
Speaking to The Kyiv Independent in a March 2026 video interview, executive director of the Anti‑Corruption Action Center Daria Kaleniuk told journalist Oleksiy Sorokin that major corruption investigations launched by NABU and other bodies frequently “stall in the courts,” with cases languishing for years without verdicts.
According to Sorokin’s interview, Kaleniuk argued that political obstacles – from resistance in parliament to informal pressure on judges – were slowing key reforms, and that Ukraine must strengthen law‑enforcement institutions, judicial independence and accountability if it hopes to convince the EU it is serious about fighting graft.
Civil society warnings and protests over backsliding
Reporting for DW News in July 2025, a presenter explained that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had faced “huge protests” after pushing through a law that stripped two anti‑corruption agencies of their independence, prompting accusations of backsliding.
In that segment, the broadcaster noted that Zelenskyy quickly backtracked in the face of public anger, telling Ukrainians that their protests were “not falling on deaf ears” and promising to address concerns in a revised draft law.
DW’s business programme then interviewed Anastassia Fedyk, an assistant professor of finance at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the non‑profit Economists for Ukraine, to assess what the move signalled about the president’s approach to corruption.
According to the transcript, Fedyk said civil society and international partners had engaged intensively with the government on the new draft, and she indicated that anti‑corruption groups “appear satisfied that the proposal would ensure [the agencies’] independence and would correct the issues from Tuesday’s law.”
In an August 2025 analysis for the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert, Olena Halushka wrote that a
“recent wave of nationwide protests in defense of the country’s anti-corruption reforms”
had demonstrated that Ukraine’s democratic instincts remained strong even amid Russia’s full‑scale invasion.
Halushka reported that the protests were sparked by attempts to subordinate anti‑corruption bodies to the politically appointed Prosecutor General, and formed part of broader fears that the authorities were seeking to roll back accountability under cover of wartime emergency.
The same article pointed to what Halushka called a “broader trend” undermining reforms, citing the failure to appoint a new head of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine, investigations targeting prominent anti‑corruption activists, and alleged attempts to erode the independence of bodies such as the High Qualification Commission of Judges.
She argued that strengthening and protecting anti‑corruption institutions was
“more vital than ever during wartime,”
given the scale of reconstruction funds at stake and the need to maintain Western public support for aid to Ukraine.
Legal challenges and slow justice
In an interview with Al Jazeera published in January 2026, a Ukrainian lawyer specialising in corruption cases, identified as Shevchuka, described the criminal‑justice process as “drawn‑out” and said that “unfortunately, there hasn’t been much progress” on some high‑profile graft investigations.
As reported by Al Jazeera, Shevchuka said that initial charges had been filed against several individuals, including an example in which a suspect named Mindich had been charged in absentia because he was outside the country, but she noted that most information came from public court hearings and that “no significant developments” had occurred between sessions.
According to the same interview, court hearings in that case were expected to resume “in a few weeks,” illustrating the stop‑start nature of proceedings that activists argue erodes public trust and allows suspects to evade accountability for years.
Shevchuka expressed cautious hope that change was possible but stressed that systemic weaknesses – including overloaded courts, limited investigative capacity and political pressure – continued to slow progress on complex corruption schemes.
In its broader review, the OECD similarly highlighted a shortage of trained experts and specialists in the justice sector, noting that judicial reforms had been “postponed” beyond 2016–2017 and that the government of the time was “not so open for society and [tried] to manipulate with some decision,” according to stakeholders quoted in the document.
These structural problems, the analysis suggested, have created an environment in which landmark anti‑corruption cases can be delayed, diverted or quietly abandoned, even when investigative agencies seek to push them forward.
International conditionality and recommendations
In a January 2025 blog for the U4 anti‑corruption resource centre titled “Five ways for anti-corruption conditionality to succeed in Ukraine,” the authors argued that linking aid to specific governance milestones could support essential reforms and “pave the country’s way into the EU,” but warned that poorly designed conditionality risked backfiring.
They recommended focusing on clear, realistic conditions, maintaining long‑term engagement with domestic reformers, and ensuring that benchmarks strengthened institutions like NABU, SAPO and the courts instead of encouraging box‑ticking.
In her discussion with The Kyiv Independent, Kaleniuk likewise framed anti‑corruption reforms as a prerequisite for Ukraine’s EU entry and for rebuilding trust with Ukrainian society and European partners, saying that donors “do not want to fund corruption, they want to fund reforms.”
Sorokin’s interview emphasised that, from the perspective of Ukrainian watchdogs, external conditionality remains one of the few levers capable of countering domestic political resistance to deep‑rooted change.
The OECD report on Ukraine’s anti‑corruption strategy urged Kyiv to adopt the long‑pending strategy, embed non‑governmental stakeholders more firmly in monitoring and ensure merit‑based appointments for top law‑enforcement and prosecutorial posts, using transparent procedures and international experts.
It also called for stronger safeguards against political interference in NABU and SAPO, including clear jurisdictional rules to prevent cases being taken away from them without legal justification.
Reform gains at risk but pressure continues
Analysts at Fitch Solutions assessed that, despite missed EU deadlines and delays in certain structural reforms, the IMF remained broadly satisfied with Ukraine’s performance and unlikely to suspend disbursements under the EFF, given what they described as “satisfactory reform implementation.”
At the same time, they warned that legislative deadlock and lagging implementation under the Ukraine Facility threatened to undermine the government’s credibility and could, over time, jeopardise access to portions of the EU’s 50‑billion‑euro support package.
Halushka’s Atlantic Council piece noted that attempts to weaken anti‑corruption agencies had already triggered strong pushback from both domestic activists and international partners, suggesting that outright dismantling of the post‑Maidan architecture remained politically costly for the authorities.
DW’s reporting on the protests over Zelenskyy’s controversial law echoed this dynamic, describing how the president was forced into a rapid reversal and more consultative approach after public demonstrations and criticism from experts like Fedyk.
Kaleniuk, in her conversation with The Kyiv Independent, argued that whether Ukraine can sustain and deepen its anti‑corruption agenda amid war will be a defining test for its EU future, insisting that “strengthening law‑enforcement institutions, judicial independence, and accountability is essential” if Kyiv is to meet European standards.
For now, international donors, civil society and reform‑minded officials continue to exert pressure for change, but the repeated delays, contested appointments and stalled court cases documented by organisations such as the OECD and highlighted by media across Europe and Ukraine show how fragile those gains remain.
