(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday promised a fresh round of institutional “cleaning,” a reference to his ongoing campaign to impress Western partners by showing Kyiv has moved on from a history of deep-rooted graft.
“Next week will be a continuation of our work on cleaning state institutions of those who tried to drag from the past all those old habits, old schemes that weakened Ukraine for a very long time, for decades,” he said in his nightly address.
Zelenskiy gave no details about who might be a target. He has recently expressed indignation at corruption uncovered during an audit of Ukraine’s military recruitment centers, but is anxious to root out graft in general as he presses to join NATO and the European Union.
On Saturday he vowed “no more old formats” in Ukraine, where he said some sought to reap rewards by putting the state and others at their own service. “Whoever a person is, a military commissar, a deputy, or an official, everyone must work only for the interests of the state,” he said.
(Reporting by Elaine Monaghan in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)
