After the start of the full-scale invasion of Russia on the territory of Ukraine, almost 7,000 sentences were handed down to corrupt officials, but only 1.5% of them received a prison sentence. Most of the convicts simply paid off with fines. This is reported by the Opendatabot analytical project.
According to data, since the beginning of the war, 6,877 sentences were handed down to corrupt officials. This number is significantly lower than in the period before the full-scale war, when about 2,500 sentences were handed down annually. In 2021, the Register of Corrupt Persons was replenished with 6,870 new entries. Only for the current year, 1,758 sentences have already been handed down.
Analyzing the situation, experts note that such a decrease in the number of sentences is due to the fact that at the beginning of the great invasion, the submission of declarations for officials was voluntary, and accordingly, control by the NAKC was not carried out.
The main articles under which corrupt officials were convicted this year:
- Offering, promising or giving an illegal benefit to an official : 663 convictions (37.7% of the total number).
- Untimely submission of declarations : 623 verdicts (35.4%), which is 34 times more than in the previous year.
- Violation of requirements for the prevention and settlement of conflicts of interest : 281 verdicts (16%).
In 98% of cases, fines were imposed on corrupt officials - that's 1,714 sentences. Only 1.5% of convicts received a real term - a total of 27 sentences with deprivation of liberty.
The largest number of sentences was recorded in the Lviv region - 172, which is 9.8% of the total number. Vinnytsia region took the second place with 151 verdicts (8.6%), and Odesa region closes the top three with 115 cases (6.5%).
"Some functions of the NAKC were suspended due to the full-scale war for two years, so now it is necessary to process the accumulated amount of work as soon as possible. We have changed the approach to the verification of declarations by introducing auto-checks and selecting only declarations with a high risk rating for full checks," the NAKC said.
