Ali Baba on Bankova: How the Government Made the State Its Personal Treasure Cave

Source: Author’s Facebook page

Once, it was a fairy tale—Eastern, colorful, with fictional heroes. Today, it is the documentary reality of Ukraine. In the very heart of our capital, there is a cave. Not in a mountain pass, not among the sands—but at the center of statehood: on Bankova Street. And there is its own Ali Baba, not one who stumbled upon the cave, but one who created it.

He built it and turned it into a private nest, where the magpie instinct triumphs over any sense of statecraft:

• Everything that shines attracts him.

• Everything that brings influence draws people in.

• And everything that can be turned into a treasure becomes subordinate.

And so begins our tale—about how a country at war was transformed into a cave, filled not with the tools of victory, but with objects hoarded for personal gain.

In the fairy tale, Ali Baba was a poor man who stumbled upon the wealth of robbers. In Ukraine’s version, Ali Baba is a man who found the state itself and decided to treat it like a treasure-filled cave.

Everything that had value – everything that shone, everything that could be turned into a resource, into a mechanism of influence, into a tool of control – all of this was drawn into the Bankova cave.

• Energy flows.
• Electricity tariffs.
• Energoatom contracts.
• Defense budgets and “procurement schemes”.
• Tenders that reached even the occupied Zapadnaya NPP.
• Information space.
• Personnel decisions in law enforcement agencies.
• Appointments in agencies and corporations.
• And even attempts to rewrite the rules of operation of the NABU and SAPO for the convenience of the cave.

Bankova has not become the center of the state. Bankova has become the center of access to treasures. This is not statehood. This is a magpie’s nest, into which for years everything that glittered was dragged.

Forty robbers are not fiction. This is the entire vertical of power. In Scheherazade, forty robbers hid gold. In our country, forty robbers are hiding Ukraine.

Robber ministers
Those who signed tenders without reading them.
Those who covered up failures.
Those who disappeared from TSK as quickly as billions disappeared from the energy sector.

Energy thieves
People under whom Energoatom conducted procurement for the Zahidna NPP occupied by the Russians in 2022-2023 (!)
This is not a mistake. This is a textbook on how a state should not operate in war.

Robbers of the defense
Those who turned a front-line need into a back-end business.
Those who “purchased” drones from the air, foil bulletproof vests, fuel without liters, UAVs without propellers.
Those who took the chips out of every “contract”.

Robbers of Power Cabinets
Not those who catch criminals.
But those who catch NABU detectives when they get too close to the cave.
Just like they did with Ruslan Maghamedrasulov, the only one who ventured into the darkness with a flashlight.

Robber Advisors
Shadows without official positions or powers.
People with no mandate or authority, yet who dictate the fates of ministers.
Call operators heavier than the Constitution itself.

Robber MPs
Those who voted for the law that destroyed the independence of NABU and SAPO, precisely when the anti-corruption agencies approached the cave and turned on the light.

Robbers in State-Owned Companies
Directors appointed not for competence, but for loyalty.
Accountants who “did it correctly.”
Financial directors who “lost documents correctly.”
Technical managers who “signed correctly.”

In the fairy tale, the robbers lived in a mountain.
Here, they live off the state budget.

Zelenskyy’s Freudian truth: “Get out of here, robber!”

The greatest irony of this story is that Zelenskyy himself, completely subconsciously, called the essence of his own system. A long time ago, at a meeting in Boryspil, he shouted to an official: “Get out of here, robber! Can’t you hear? Go for a walk.”

Nice words that are addressed to Volodymyr Alexandrovich himself, aren’t they?

No further comments are needed. The country itself read this as a verdict.

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