One More Big Mistake
Crash Test Dummy President
There is nothing sensational in the dramatic appearance of Mykola Chaus in a village near Moldova border on July 30, 2021. He isn’t the first Ukrainian bribe-taking judge to vanish under mysterious circumstances only to pop up later.
No one knows who made the decision to revive a years-old, almost forgotten scandal by authorizing the abduction of Chaus in neighboring Moldova.
We all remember the disappearing act of Ihor Zvarych (former Head of the Lviv District Administrative Court of Appeal) and the bizarre catch-me-if-you-can adventures involving dozens of other corrupt judges, including Pavlo Vovk (Head of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv).
Almost every other Ukrainian judge, every third member of parliament and probably half of all government employees, including those who work for the Cabinet of Ministers and Presidential Administration, are bribe-takers.
Who decided when Chaus should re-emerge, when and under what circumstances? These are the questions people should be asking. The individuals below can provide the answers, as well as Moldova’s Interior Minister Pavel Voicu.
There are at least three contributing factors to the current mess. The first is that Chaus in 2015 sanctioned the arrest and detention of a vocal critic of former President Petro Poroshenko. The second is that the ensuing scandal is likely one of the reasons he fled to Moldova in early 2016. The third is the involvement of agents of Ukraine’s special security services, specifically the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense.
Any kind of big conflict in Ukraine resembles a complicated game of chess. It’s often difficult for ordinary citizens and foreign “experts” to understand who is putting what piece into play. In this match, it’s obvious that Ukraine’s crash test dummy of a president has made the wrong move.
(to be continued)
