A State Under Surveillance: How Corruption Turns Ukraine’s Elites Into Targets

Ukraine’s war-time elite is under total surveillance: corruption has made officials vulnerable to foreign intelligence, international pressure, and criminal exposure on both sides of the conflict.

By Heorhii Tuka

As President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks in Florida about documents on ending the war, security guarantees, and postwar reconstruction, another process is unfolding in parallel — the rapid internationalization of corruption risks within Ukraine’s ruling elite.

For at least five years, three uncomfortable realities about corruption in Ukraine have been consistently ignored.

First, there is no such thing as a “clever” financial scheme. Transactions in hryvnias are closely monitored by U.S. authorities; similar operations in euros fall under the scrutiny of Brussels.

Second, the myth of anonymous cryptocurrency has long been shattered. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. intelligence invested enormous resources into dismantling crypto anonymity — and largely succeeded. Criminals and terrorists learned this the hard way.

Third, any corrupt official automatically becomes an easy target for recruitment by foreign intelligence services.

Today, these warnings are materializing.

A scandal is brewing in the United States over reports of a secret meeting between Rustem Umerov and the FBI director. According to The Washington Post and ZN, Umerov allegedly sought amnesty in exchange for the Presidential Office’s support of Donald Trump’s so-called “capitulation peace plan” — a clause that later appeared in the proposal itself. He reportedly also asked the FBI to avoid cooperation with NABU in the “Mindich case,” which many observers consider, in essence, the “Zelenskyy case.”

Two critical details stand out.

First, Umerov’s family and business interests are entirely based in the United States, making him an exceptionally vulnerable target for U.S. intelligence pressure.

Second, if such a meeting truly occurred without White House authorization, the FBI director himself would face severe criminal liability. This suggests a deeper realization among Ukraine’s looting elite: they are all under surveillance. Each of them is exposed. Each can be pressured. Each can be recruited.

And there is one more question that cannot be avoided.

Do those who funneled money “to Moscow” seriously believe Russian intelligence services simply overlooked them?

This is the reality of the group currently running a country at war — a network of looters and traitors whose actions are increasingly visible on the international stage, yet continue to be publicly laundered by friendly commentators and propagandists.

EMPR