It's as if some kind of plot to drown Umerov appeared and now the Internet is full of devastating articles about him by various activists. Political scientist Yaroslav Bozhko claims in his article that the accusations are based on a superficial understanding of the work of state structures and are not confirmed by facts of corruption, and also criticizes anti-corruption activists for their incompetence in the matter of state defense management.
At the end of last week, the columns of "Ukrainian Pravda" published a material authored by the head of the Communist Party of Ukraine Daria Kaleniuk, as well as Maria Berlinska and Alyona Hetmanchuk. It is directed against the Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov, whom the same anti-corruption public just last year "handily" brought to the post of minister and "assured that it will be better."
The first and main claim is "chaos in the Ministry of Defense, which Umerov did not eliminate." I tried to sift through all the material to find indicators of this phenomenon called "chaos" and see some shocking things.
However, I saw the usual misunderstanding of the realities of the work of state departments and the defense sector by all three authors (none of whom has ever worked in any state department or civil service). And of course, pulling the owl on the globe.
First of all, I have never found any corruption or objective criticism of Umerov regarding corruption schemes in which the Ministry of Defense is involved. And this is the main profile of their work, and the question of why they undertook to comment on the work of the MOU is open.
If there are schemes, write about them and show the numbers, submit statements to law enforcement agencies, and only "for", but this already looks like typical lobbying. As many as five deputies and other officials of the Ministry of Defense coordinate work with international partners.
The authors call it chaos, although it is logical that cooperation with foreigners is a sectoral thing: someone cooperates with them on military-technical issues, someone - on procurement, someone - on material support, someone - on personnel training. But "the task was to show chaos"!
In the same material, the statement that "Western partners constantly ask to explain who is responsible for what in the MoU" is also completely empty. After all, the frequency of the West's constant communications with the IOU — from visits, Forums, constant mutual visits, phone calls, and to banquets — is very high.
Profile Western employees of NATO, ministries of defense, and defense companies are many times familiar with the MoU, and much more than with the Central Committee and Maria Berlinska. This is simply the logic of the departments' work, and it should not be surprising that another ministry abroad is always a more interesting target for communication than activists.
Despite the statement at the beginning that as many as 5 officials work on international communications with partners, at the same time it is written below that in fact no one coordinates work with international partners. Because one official is currently not appointed and is vacant.
However, is this proof of chaos? Personnel material for high-level positions of international cooperation is an extremely rare phenomenon, and the vacancy of a position (with the fact that 5 other people are coordinating) is by no means proof of chaos.
All the material gives off a typical vibe for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine — "we knocked out the F-16 planes for Ukraine, not the Ministry of Defense" and so on. The objection to delaying the launch of the supervisory board of the Defense Procurement Agency, with reference to the document on NATO recommendations, looks funny.
However, in the same document, in the profile box, it is clearly indicated that the regulatory norms for this should be developed not by the MOU, but by the Cabinet of Ministers; well, it happens. The authors accuse Umerova of how they allegedly learned from public activists that the validity period of the decision regarding the allocated funds to Ukraine in the amount of $6.2 billion will expire in a month.
At the same time, how they are not provided is not because of Umerov's actions or Ukraine in general, but this requires specific decisions from the USA and specifically from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. This is stated in the same post referenced in the article itself - however, for some reason, US inaction becomes a reason to criticize the IOU.
My verdict is simple: the anti-corruptionists were "promised something" when Umerov was appointed to the post, or later, and now it became clear that "the deal will not take place." And that's why they had to "withdraw their support for Umerov" and point out that they "were wrong about him."
As in the Soviet Union: " Tavarisch Beria left the daveria ". Just who are they to judge the activities of the Ministry (in general) and the Minister (in particular) of Defense of Ukraine:
- public administration specialists — no;
- Western partners - no;
- specialists in defense procurement - no, because the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine never carried out any large-scale weapons purchases, just like Maria Berlinska).
Defense is handled by the state, not public organizations, which have agreed to be a kind of Watchdogs, while not having a specific profile in the field of state defense management. A fool is rich in thought, yes...
My special "hello" for the thesis that various advisors and specialists who do not submit declarations and "it is unknown whether they passed a special inspection" play a big role in the Ministry of Defense. These are the realities of public administration.
As a rule, positions in the state structure are full-time (civil service) and advisory (patronage), where they are hired on different terms. Of course, it would be better for everyone to pass the military counterintelligence special check, but the absence of this direct requirement in the rules of admission to the patronage service (in all departments, not only the MOU) does not mean at all that it is not passed there
Besides everything else, the thesis about declarations sounds simply ridiculous. It's cool to declare, but what to do if your department needs a specialist who saw your declaration in the coffin and curses the civil service because of its framework with the register of PEPs and other restrictions (introduced not without recommendations and pressure from the CPC).
So, to attract reasonable people with less strict requirements, the option to be an adviser was created (because the state does not know how to compete with salaries in high positions and cannot). But Kaleniuk and Co. do not pay attention to this.
The last and most amusing thing: the authors accuse that, you see, Umerov cooperates with Turkey, which causes them fears, because "Turkey recently joined the BRICS." Friends, the conflict between Turkey and the USA is almost 10 years old, as is the fact that the USA supported the Kurds and the democratic opposition to Recep Tayyip Erdogan with weapons.
Ukraine's support of Turkey with weapons was a long time ago and in no way contradicted the support with weapons from the USA - the world is colorful after all, and not divided in two on every issue. And everyone knew about the fact of Turkey's closeness to the Crimean Tatar Umerov for a long time, but still a year ago they supported his candidacy for minister and interceded for him.
The Turkish-American disputes were already in full swing then, and for some reason you did not blame them on Umerov, and now it suddenly became a striking fact on which you began to base your criticism. Anti-corruptionists "somewhere" did not agree with Umerov, and now they are starting to "pump" him.
Moreover, they clearly did not agree on spiritual values, but on something quite mundane and lobbyist. Such is the nature of this environment: frogs love vipers and vice versa.
