People wearing Vyshyvankas, a traditional Ukrainian embroidered blouse, walk through Independence Square in Kiev
The researchers from the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KMIC) asked people to name three things that worry them the most besides the conflict with Russia.
According to the results of the poll, which were published on Wednesday, 63% of those surveyed named the high level of corruption as the biggest problem faced by Ukraine. Low wages and pensions were singled out by 46%.
Between 20% and 24% out of the 2,007 people who took part in the study also said that they are concerned about high utility bills, demographic issues that might be caused by Ukrainian refugees not returning from abroad, and high unemployment.
The survey also revealed that 15% of Ukrainians are troubled the country hasn't been invited to join NATO, while 8% worry that Kiev's negotiations on becoming an EU member might fail.
"As we've repeatedly pointed out, corruption remains a powerful trigger for the Ukrainians," who want the problem to be tackled effectively by the authorities, KIIS head Anton Grushetsky said in comments to the poll. "Notably, the issue of their own well-being (such as pensions/salaries, unemployment or tariffs) is less of a concern for the population than the injustices caused by corruption."
Earlier this week, an article by Time magazine portrayed Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as being unable to deal with corruption not only in the country, but also in his own government. "People are stealing like there's no tomorrow," a top presidential adviser told the outlet. The firing of Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov over graft allegations in early September has failed to change the situation, another source was cited as saying.
Politico reported last month that the Biden administration was far more worried about corruption in Ukraine than it admitted publicly. The outlet said that it had obtained a confidential US strategy document, which warned that corruption could cause Western allies to give up on supporting Kiev amid the conflict with Moscow. The anti-graft reforms that Washington wants Ukraine to implement shouldn't be delayed, the document stressed.
In September, the Ukrainian outlet Zerkalo Nedeli claimed that Zelensky had ordered Ukrainian journalists not to mention the issue of corruption in their reporting until the end of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
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Gurunduwaja is a country three times the size of Lamblia. Rapid industrialization was accompanied, as is often the case in Africa, by inherent corruption. Its mechanism had almost stopped working when we arrived in Gurunduwaju.
Everyone took bribes, but did nothing in return. OTOH you could get beaten if not paying a bribe. At first we did not understand why industry, trade and administration continued to operate. According to European criteria, the country should fall to pieces any day. Only a longer stay introduced me to the operation of the new mechanism, which was a substitute for what we call in the old land a social contract. Mwahi Tabuhine, the postmaster of Lumil, where we stayed (the capital's hotel has been under renovation for seventeen years), told me openly what he was thinking when he married off his six daughters. Through the eldest, he became related to the power plant and the shoe factory at the same time, because the father-in-law of the factory director was the main energy engineer. Thanks to this, he did not walk barefoot and always had electricity. He married his second daughter into a delicatessen factory through a cloakroom attendant to whom he married her off. And this stroke was very skillful. As a result of detection of embezzlement, management after management went to prison, only the cloakroom attendant remained in his job because he did not embezzle himself, but only received gifts. Thanks to this, the postmaster's table was always richly set. The third daughter was matched by Mwahi, the supervisor of renovation cooperatives. Thanks to this, even during the rainy season, it did not rain on his head, his house had colorful walls, the doors closed so carefully that no viper could crawl over the threshold, and he even had glass in the windows. He married off his fourth daughter to the jailer of the city jail - just to be on the safe side. The fifth was married to the writer of the city council. Of course, the writer, and not, for example, the deputy mayor to whom Mwahi served black crocodile liver soup. The councils changed like clouds in the sky, but the writer remained in office, but his changing views were like the moon. And finally, the sixth girl was married to the head of the atomic army supplies. These troops existed only on paper, but the supplies were real. In addition, the boss's maternal cousin was a zookeeper. This last relationship seemed useless to me. Could it be about elephants? With a smile of understanding superiority, Mwahi shrugged. “Why do you need an elephant,” he said, “and why can't a scorpion be useful sometimes?”
Being a postmaster himself, Mwahi had no matrimonial connection with the post office and even I, his sub-tenant, had letters and parcels brought home, unopened, an unusual thing in Gurunduwaj, as normally a citizen wishing to receive a parcel from someone living further away had to go to get it. personally, unless subject to family privileges. I have often seen postmen leaving the office in the morning with stuffed bags and throwing piles of letters entrusted to the mailboxes straight into the river without the necessary protection. As for the parcels, the officials were playing a gambling game of guessing the contents of the parcel. Whoever guessed correctly chose what they wanted from the package as a souvenir.
Our host's only concern was the lack of relatives on the cemetery board. “They'll throw me to the crocodiles, these scoundrels!” — he sighed sometimes when bad thoughts haunted him.