https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraines-real-power-broker-yermak-zelensky-russia-war-biden-2023-12
But the graft that has long contaminated the country's political system unsettles Ukrainians far from the circles of power. "Huge corruption" is Ukraine's biggest problem, an 18-year-old at a Kyiv café told me bluntly. "I love Ukraine," she said — but she hesitates to give money to the military for fear a dishonest official will steal her donation. Earlier this year, investigative journalists revealed that the prices at which suppliers promised to deliver basics like potatoes and cabbage to Ukrainian troops were inflated two to three times beyond the purchase price reported to government tax officials.
In polls taken last summer by the Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives Foundation, Ukrainians listed corruption as the No. 1 obstacle to the development of entrepreneurship in the country — ahead of destruction caused by the war. And a majority of Ukrainians surveyed said it would be "appropriate" for foreign partners to provide military aid "only under the condition of an effective fight against corruption in Ukraine." On the most recent "corruption perception" index assembled by the watchdog group Transparency International, Ukraine ranked 116 out of 180 countries — not far in front of Russia, which clocked in at 137.