Volodymyr Zelensky’s Second Front: Ukraine’s Corruption

Alexandra Dubsky, 4 April 2024

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky’s main asset is allegedly an estimated one-quarter stake in the holding company Kvartal 95, a group of companies that produce comedic TV shows. He transferred his stake to his partners after being elected president, with plans to regain his shares after leaving office. Among Kvartal 95’s productions is a popular political comedy starring Zelensky as a Ukrainian high school teacher who unexpectedly becomes head of state. Netflix, which previously streamed the show from 2017 to 2021, acquired the rights again last year.

Even though he also owns an apartment in one of Ukraine’s most affluent areas in the center of Kyiv, it is allegedly rather humble by Western standards. Forbes estimates that Zelensky’s entire real estate portfolio is worth about USD 4 million, including two apartments and two others that he co-owns, along with a single commercial property and five parking spaces.

Forbes further estimates that he and his wife, Olena Zelenska, share a joint bank account with approximately USD 2 million in cash and government bonds. Their remaining assets consist mainly of jewelry valued at around USD 1 million.

According to one viral post from October 2023, Olena Zelenska had embarked on her very own spending spree of some USD 1.1 million on Cartier jewelry during a trip to New York while visiting the United States with her husband, who was there to urge lawmakers in Congress to maintain support for Ukraine’s war against Russia.

The post included a recording of someone who claimed to have been an intern at Cartier in New York during Zelenska’s visit to the store. The salesperson said that while she was showing Zelenska some pieces, the Ukrainian first lady verbally abused her, leading to the salesperson losing her job after Zelenska spoke to the manager. A photo of the receipt appeared at the end of the video, stating Zelenska’s name and a total amount of USD 1 110 520.

However, before the video went online, there was no apparent information regarding a shopping trip or any other photos of Zelenska visiting Cartier or any other retailers in New York during her visit to the United States. While she may have been shopping while in New York, the absence of such photos is unusual. Additionally, photos of Cartier receipts are widely available online, and the document shown on social media seems almost certainly to be a fake.

What remains interesting is that the Cartier claim has more than just a coincidental similarity to other claims about Zelenska’s extravagant shopping trips. In December 2022, rumors were spreading online that she had spent USD 40,000 during a buying binge in Paris during one of her husband’s diplomatic visits to the French capital. Similarly, when the couple stayed in Vienna in September 2020 social media was flooded with receipts from luxury Austrian jewelry brands worth millions.

The initial spread of these claims was observed among pro-Russian social media channels, which have been associated with disseminating deceptive information about Ukraine. However, the corruption accusations do not stop here.

Earlier in 2024, Zelensky’s Minister of Defense, Rustem Umerov, reported an inspection that supposedly uncovered a corruption case connected to military purchases worth some USD 262 million in just the four months since Zelensky took office. Moreover, in December 2023, a different Ministry of Defense official was arrested on suspicion of embezzling almost USD 40 million through illegal acquisitions of critical artillery shells intended for Ukraine’s army.

These corruption claims “play into deeper criticisms of exploitation and the waste of US aid in many other countries around the world,” stated Anatol Lieven, Eurasia Program director at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, DC.

Lieven told Newsweek that Zelensky has been told repeatedly, both in public and in private, that he simply must do something very visible to crack down on corruption to help the Biden administration get its aid package through Congress. As part of Ukraine’s anti-corruption measures, billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky, said to be Zelensky’s key sponsor for the presidential election campaign in 2019, was arrested in September 2023. Kolomoisky reportedly transferred USD 14 million overseas through banks under his control. His house was raided on 1 February 2023 in a separate investigation into embezzlement and tax fraud.

“There is always a risk that if Zelensky goes really hard after corruption, a lot of these local bosses, like Kolomoisky, may throw their weight behind the former President Petro Poroshenko,” Lieven warned. “One can imagine a situation in which endangered Ukrainian oligarchs think that Zelensky is becoming too much of a threat to them. Then they might better back his political opponents, who will be grateful to them when these guys come to power.'” Even though Zelensky has probably done more than any previous Ukrainian president to tackle corruption, he is in a very difficult situation, and he must balance between different threats, Lieven added.

“I think Zelensky is quite serious about that,” said Stefan Wolff, a political science professor at the University of Birmingham in the UK.  “But his level of seriousness and his ability to do something about it is probably no match for these deeply entrenched networks of corruption, sort of how the institutions themselves really depend on corrupt exchanges to function,” he concluded.

While the future of Ukraine is in the balance and the war against Russia has no end in sight, Zelensky’s political survival might ultimately depend on winning the battle on his second front, corruption.