Ukraine’s politics suffer from a vicious circle of corruption. Its elections are extremely expensive. Large amounts of gray and black funds are needed to finance them. Criminals, called gray cardinals, handle this black financing, extracted from the state treasury and state companies. To corrupt all, the gray cardinals and their political allies insist on tiny official salaries of ministers, parliamentarians, and civil servants to force them to rely on black incomes to survive. Only the independently wealthy are free. This vicious circle can and must be broken, by attacking each element in the chain. …read more
Source: Atlantic Council