Ukraine on the Brink: Can the Political Freefall Be Stopped?

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Ukraine may have preserved the formal independence of its anti-corruption institutions, but beneath the surface, the country is still drifting into political turbulence, marked by unmet commitments to the EU, IMF, and World Bank that raise serious concerns about its reform trajectory.

As the implementation of necessary reforms continues to stall, even more critical benchmarks may be missed in the coming quarters. This could result in the suspension of vital funding, potentially triggering a full-scale economic crisis. After all, Ukraine has managed to avoid hyperinflation and food rationing during a major war, largely thanks to the sustained and substantial financial support of Western partners.

At the same time, Parliament is steadily losing relevance. The one-party majority, which has functionally ceased to exist for several years now, is on the verge of formal collapse, even without pending corruption allegations against several dozen of its members resulting in convictions.

Another defining feature of this political crisis is the growing erosion of the President’s legitimacy — a dangerous development in wartime. Unpopular decisions will inevitably need to be made, and they require a strong political mandate. Ukraine remains far from victory, with a long list of unresolved systemic problems accumulating under the surface.

Even greater legitimacy will be required when the time inevitably comes for peace negotiations. Until then, however, the trend is downward: public trust continues to erode. At the same time, the informal moratorium on mass protests has effectively ended — citizens are no longer bound by the self-restraint and self-censorship they observed during the early stages of the war.

Meanwhile, complex challenges are piling up, and solving them demands an equally complex and adaptive governance system. Instead, our political system is becoming increasingly centralized and simplistic, less capable of addressing multifaceted problems.

I am not convinced that the current ruling team has drawn any meaningful lessons from the NABU and SAPO episodes. On the contrary, they may have come away with the illusion that they’ve outmaneuvered everyone — that the public will forget, go home, and that international partners will move on. This is exactly the mindset that appeared to underpin the July 22 bill that destabilized the political environment: they assumed no one would notice.

Now is the time to draw real conclusions. I’ve already written that the only viable path out of this crisis is through political leadership that can rebuild trust, both at home and with international partners. I take no satisfaction in the President’s loss of legitimacy during wartime. On the contrary, it is a dangerous development at a perilous moment in our history.

Our immediate reform agenda should include:

1. Reforming the Bureau of Economic Security.

2. Overhauling customs procedures.

3. Renewing the panel of international experts in the High Qualification Commission of Judges.

4. Appointing pre-selected judges to the Constitutional Court.

5. Rejecting controversial draft amendments to the Criminal Code.

6. Adopting the law on administrative proceedings.

7. Fully restoring parliamentary broadcasts, including committee sessions.

8. Ensuring the timely signing of approved legislation by the President.

9. Introducing mandatory public consultations during the drafting of legislation.

We are not back to where we were on July 21. That is an illusion. On the surface, it may appear so, but in reality, we’ve suffered significant political damage. Neither politicians, nor citizens, nor international partners can afford complacency.

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