Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday issued a decree sacking a top security official and said his efforts to purge the government were continuing.
The intended official is the deputy commander of the National Guard, Raslan Djuba, according to a brief decree issued by the Presidency Office that did not give reasons for this decision.
Zelensky did not mention Djoba by name during his daily videotaped speech, while stressing the importance of purging the Defense Ministry in particular.
Zelensky said he met with defense and law enforcement officials to discuss ways to protect the institutions from what he called “attempts from outside or within to reduce their effectiveness and efficiency.”
“All this activity is not only related to certain facts or criminal procedures. The state will continue to modernize the institutions themselves. The purity of the functioning of the state’s (organizational) structures must be ensured,” he added, referring to the purge.
What is happening?
• Ukraine is waging an intense campaign once morest corruption, in parallel with its efforts to repel the Russian military offensive that has been going on for nearly a year.
• Kyiv authorities have sacked dozens of officials in the past weeks, and opened investigations as part of a wide-ranging crackdown on wrongdoing.
• Thursday, the Ukrainian Defense Minister said that hundreds of officials in the ministry or the armed forces had been referred for disciplinary investigations over the past year following internal audits, and that he had “zero tolerance” for corruption.
• The European Union says that tackling corruption is a necessary requirement, before Ukraine joins the bloc of 27 countries.