Peculiarities of “sport fishing”: why top corrupt officials avoid prison
фотоколаж: facebook В.Смірнов
Selectivity still prevails in the Ukrainian law enforcement system, where the size of the stolen property is directly proportional to the suspect’s chances of remaining at large, and current legislation allows those involved to pay multi-million bail and safely leave the country.
This opinion was expressed on the air of “Pryamoy” by Doctor of Law and Kyiv City Council deputy Leonid Yemets, analyzing the state of the fight against corruption in the highest echelons of power.
“We have been enjoying this sport fishing for a long time, when top corrupt officials are caught and then released. The more a corrupt official steals, the more likely he is to be released. If a person stole a pie there to eat, then he has a better chance of ending up behind bars,” Yemets noted.
According to the lawyer, current legislation allows defendants in high-profile cases to pay multimillion-dollar bail and quietly leave the country using hidden resources. At the same time, honest citizens are much more vulnerable to justice, since they do not have the financial capacity for such maneuvers.
Yemets also noted that preserving the independence of anti-corruption structures such as NABU and SAPO was only possible thanks to public pressure. He recalled how people took to the streets to thwart political attempts to eliminate these bodies, which later allowed them to expose systemic bribery schemes within parliament.
Recall that on June 19, 2025, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine established a Temporary Investigative Commission to investigate possible corruption in law enforcement agencies, courts, and judicial authorities.
The European Solidarity faction supported its creation, hoping that the commission would become an effective tool of parliamentary control and help expose corruption in the security forces. However, as stated in the political party, this TSC has turned into a mechanism of political pressure on independent anti-corruption institutions.
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