KYIV – Scandal after scandal, overshadowing progress. That summarizes the last 10 days or so in Kyiv, as the focus switched from foreign to domestic issues. These have involved a public rift over charges of corruption and bribery within President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s majority Servant of the People party that necessitated drastic damage-control measures and the alleged exploitation of a famed Ukrainian cultural institution for political purposes to benefit a notorious oligarch.
In connection with the first case, a bizarre scene unfolded on October 23. After exchanging accusations in public with the head of the president’s faction in the Verkhovna Rada, Davyd Arakhamia, Oleksandr Dubinsky, an outspoken journalist linked with the notorious oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, took a lie detector test live on the Internet. The following day Mr. Arakhamia also did so voluntarily. The result will not be known for several days.