The latest anti-corruption reforms in the defense and security sectors in Ukraine and their impacts on the war

A conversation between Oksana Huss and Svitlana Musiiaka on the KickBack - The Global Anticorruption Podcast

Published on 11 April 2022

Photo by Chester Ho on Unsplash

Oksana Huss, who is a BIT-ACT research fellow and has been working on anticorruption in Ukraine for the last 10 years, hosts a special episode of KickBack - The Global Anticorruption Podcast on the latest reforms of Ukraine’s defense and security sector, on anti-corruption reforms more broadly, which contributed to Ukraine’s resilience in the war. 

Huss talked with Svitlana Musiiaka, who is a lawyer based in Ukraine and head of research and policy at NAKO (Independent Anti-Corruption Commission in Ukraine). Musiiaka was previously the head of corruption detection in the Ministry of Health and worked with the Prosecutors Office in Ukraine.

In the podcast, Huss and  Musiiaka approach the incremental reforms that, in the past six years, significantly increased transparency and accountability in the state with functioning independent anti-corruption bodies. In the defense and security sector, in particular, there has been a public procurement reform, that transformed soviet-style legal entities into a more transparent defense industry oversight by parliamentary oversight and subjected to forensic audits.

This change was possible due to intragovernmental cooperation as well as to a combination of constructive and professional advice by some civil society organizations such as NAKO with the intense pressure from investigative journalists (e.g. Bihus.info).

In the past weeks, the KickBack - The Global Anticorruption Podcast has been talking with academics and practitioners about the unfolding events in Ukraine through the lenses of corruption.

Listen to the talk between Svitlana Musiiaka and Oksana Huss  here.  

You can also read the text they wrote together for the Corruption in Fragile States blog.