As Ukraine enters 2018, a year which precedes the presidential and parliamentary elections, it is important to examine the results of 2017 and identify the areas where the international community can help Ukraine’s reformers secure tangible progress. We have identified nine priority areas.

A court in the Kyiv oblast has acquitted Petro Melnyk, the former Head of Ukraine’s National Tax Service University, finding “no proof of a crime” in Melnyk’s sale of four buildings belonging to the university to a company founded by his wife, son and father-in-law.  This is the second time that Melnyk has been acquitted on separate corruption charges, though the first acquittal was later revoked by another court.

Ukrainian activists and reformist lawmakers worked tirelessly overnight to remove a bill from parliamentary consideration that they say would "destroy"the country’s only independent investigative body by dismissing its chief.

A bill just tabled in Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada but hopefully withdrawn after international outrage proposed to allow parliament to dismiss the heads of independent anti-corruption agencies, whose scope includes investigating corruption by those same politicians. 

According to a survey conducted by the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), about 70 per cent of the returnees said that they were going back to their homes because they do not have to pay rent there as have to elsewhere

Successful politics is about getting things done. By that standard, October was a successful month. Not only did the government pass sweeping healthcare reform, pension reform, and judiciary reform, it also staved off populist protests. In short, pragmatism prevailed over populism.

While activists in Ukraine have welcomed news that Petro Poroshenko conceded to their demand to create an anticorruption court on October 4, their enthusiasm was curbed knowing that legislation that could hinder corruption investigations is awaiting the president’s signature.

A coalition of major Ukrainian human rights organizations has added its voice to demands that Ukraine’s government put an end to the mounting attack on non-governmental organization

More than three years after the Euromaidan, Ukraine still hasn’t successfully prosecuted any high-level crooks, and we’ve got plenty here.

People in Kerch and other locations along the planned highway route are already feeling the pain of dislocation.

The draft laws proposed "contain a number of provisions that contradict national and international legislation, are discriminatory and consequently should be withdrawn"

Protest is mounting in Ukraine over two draft bills which would impose discriminatory and excessive demands on NGOs receiving international grants. Prominent human rights activists believe them to be in clear violation of international standards on freedom of association.

While President Poroshenko’s planned cancellation of the requirement for anti-corruption NGOs to fill out e-declarations has been welcomed, alarm has been expressed at proposed amendments to the Tax Code, These would affect all NGOs receiving foreign or state funding, but not supposedly non-profit-making organizations created by political parties or business concerns.

It used to be dark, and children had to jump from stone to stone to get to school. Now, the roads are smooth and brightly lit. Water flows from the mountains by gravity, and thus is free of charge and available to everyone. This is what the residents of southwestern Ukraine’s Poliana village say decentralization has done for them.

Luckily, pension reform—unlike land and healthcare reform—has few vested stakes, and it has a good chance of passing

The Prosecutor General of Ukraine and his press office used accusations towards international organizations in response to the critical statement of the anti-corruption network Transparency International concerning the apparent lack of progress in the anti-corruption investigation against the grand corrupts officials of the former regime.

In the West, many people are ready to write off Ukraine. They wrongly believe that Ukraine’s reforms are stagnating, corruption is widespread, and the country is at war. But Ukraine’s reforms are definitely not done.

President Poroshenko has signed into law a dangerous bill which could be used to put pressure on NGOs, investigative journalists or activists, especially those most actively seeking to expose and eradicate corruption. He has in short allowed a law which his predecessor, now in hiding in Russia, would be proud of.

On the reasons why reform is slowing down

A ruling by a Kyiv district court to place Ukraine’s top tax official under arrest pending trial on embezzlement charges is being heralded as a landmark win for the country’s independent anticorruption agency and civil society as a whole in its uphill battle against entrenched graft.