"Organized Crime in Ukraine and Russia Split Since the Invasion"

From the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, February 24:

Though they once boasted one of the world’s most robust environments for organized crime since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the criminal ecosystem in Russia and Ukraine has fractured since Russian president Vladimir Putin’s launched his invasion one year ago, according to a new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

Ukrainian crime figures have now adopted a more patriotic stance on their trade; although that is not to say they still aren’t driven by power and profit.

Before the war, GI-TOC said, the two countries “controlled a lucrative transnational smuggling highway” that brought luxury goods and drugs into Western Europe. Corrupt officials and crime bosses siphoned off millions of dollars that came from Ukraine’s status as a transit country for Russian gas into the West.

Now, however, the year-long invasion has made collaboration between Russian and Ukrainian organized crime groups all but impossible and longstanding business ties are now no longer viable, GI-TOC said, at least for the present.

At the outbreak of the war, Ukrainian intelligence reportedly solicited the services of local crime groups to detect Russian criminals and saboteurs sent to destabilize Ukraine from within.

In the span of a few months, “most Russian criminal actors had been apprehended or ejected from the country,” GI-TOC reported.

The story behind this partnership draws parallels to Operation Underworld during the Second World War, in which U.S. naval intelligence contracted local Italian and Jewish organized crime groups to protect the country’s northeastern seaports from German spies and saboteurs.

Historical crime figures such as Meyer Lansky and Charles “Lucky” Luciano were similarly called upon to reign in black-marketeers who might’ve otherwise pilfered vital war supplies and equipment destined for the European theatre.

In exchange for his cooperation, Luciano’s prison sentence was commuted, though he was deported to Italy after the war and remained there until his death in 1962.

While some in Ukraine’s criminal underworld might similarly see the call to defend their homeland as a chance to wipe the slate clean, others could see it as an opportunity to claim a seat at the table previously controlled by their Russian counterparts....

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And from Politico.eu, January 26:

Reporting corruption in a time of war: The Ukrainian journalists’ dilemma
We face a continual tension between holding the government to account, and not wanting the enemy to undermine us by exploiting bad news.

In the first six months of the invasion, Ukrainian journalists and watchdogs decided to put their public criticism of the government on pause | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images 

When a major corruption scandal broke in Ukraine last weekend, reporters faced an excruciating dilemma between professional duty and patriotism. The first thought that came to my mind was: “Should I write about this for foreigners? Will it make them stop supporting us?”

There was no doubting the severity of the cases that were erupting into the public sphere. They cut to the heart of the war economy. In one instance, investigators were examining whether the deputy infrastructure minister had profited from a deal to supply electrical generators at an inflated price, while the defense ministry was being probed over an overpriced contract to supply food and catering services to the troops.

Huge stories, but in a sign of our life-or-death times in Ukraine, even my colleague Yuriy Nikolov, who got the scoop on the inflated military contract, admitted he had done everything he could not to publish his investigation. He took his findings to public officials hoping that they might be able to resolve the matter, before he finally felt compelled to run it on the ZN.UA website.

Getting a scoop that shocks your country, forces your government to start investigations and reform military procurement, and triggers the resignation of top officials is ordinarily something that makes other journalists jealous. But I fully understand how Nikolov feels about wanting to hold back when your nation is at war. Russia (and Ukraine’s other critics abroad) are, after all, looking to leap upon any opportunity to undermine trust in our authorities.  

A journalist is meant to stay a little distant from the situation he or she covers. It helps to stay impartial and to stick to the facts, not emotions. But what if staying impartial is impossible as you have to cover the invasion of your own country? Naturally, you have to keep holding your government to account, but you are also painfully aware that the enemy is out there looking to exploit any opportunity to erode faith in the leadership and undermine national security....

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