Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo
In a poll, 77.6% of Ukrainians said Zelenskyy was responsible for government corruption.
The survey included 2,011 interviews with people from 135 settlements in Ukraine.
It came out as Zelenskyy fired all the heads of Ukraine’s regional military committees.
Nearly all Ukrainians — 89% — in a newly released survey said corruption was the country’s most serious problem, after the war against Russia. The poll came out as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy launched an investigation into bribery related to military recruitment.
A survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, in cooperation with the US Agency for International Development project “Support of Leader Organizations in Combating Corruption in Ukraine,” said: “Second only to the war, corruption is perceived as the most serious problem in Ukraine by 89% of citizens.
“Despite a notable improvement in the public perception of corruption prevalence, 94% of respondents still consider corruption to be pervasive across Ukraine.”
The survey was conducted in winter and interviewed over 13,000 people, including internally and externally displaced Ukrainians.
Meanwhile, over three-quarters of Ukrainians polled in a second survey said they believed that Zelenskyy was responsible for corruption in the country’s military and government administrations, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
Interfax reported that in the survey — which it said was carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology for the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation think tank — 77.6% of Ukrainians said they believed that the president was “directly responsible” for the corruption. The report cited a statement by the think tank’s executive director, Petro Burkovskyi.
“Procrastination in solving problems that undermine people’s faith in victory will also hit the president himself,” Burkovskyi said.
The Interfax report said that for the survey, the institute carried out 2,011 interviews in July with people from 135 settlements in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy: Recruitment bribes at a time of war is ‘high treason’
On Friday, Zelenskyy said he dismissed the heads of Ukraine’s regional military committees as investigations into corruption in Ukraine continued, particularly in its armed-forces recruitment.
“We are dismissing all regional military commissars,” a statement on Zelenskyy’s official Telegram channel said. “This system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and bribery during war is high treason.”
The military officials are accused of taking cash and cryptocurrency bribes or helping people eligible to be called up to fight to flee Ukraine, Zelenskyy said in a video posted on social media, according to BBC News.
Last month, Ukrainian investigators detained the former military commissioner of the Odesa region on charges of illegal enrichment, dereliction of duty, and evading military service, local reports said.
It was alleged that he and his family bought property in Spain and luxury automobiles worth $4 million.
There are 1,795 military commissars in Ukraine, 135 of whom have been put under surveillance by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, Newsweek reported.
The commissars, Zelenskyy’s Telegram message added, will be replaced by “soldiers who have been to the front or who cannot be in the trenches because they have lost their health, lost their limbs, but have retained their dignity and have no cynicism — they can be entrusted with this recruitment system.”
Corruption scandals have plagued Ukraine over recent years, with President Joe Biden saying in 2015 that it was eating the country “like a cancer.”