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A top Ukrainian tax official was allegedly the target of an attempted violent attack outside his home in Kyiv this week, showcasing the government’s struggle to eradicate criminal links that predate the war.
Yevhen Sokur, deputy head of Ukraine’s tax service, was leaving his apartment building on Wednesday when two men, carrying baseball bats, approached him and were arrested on the spot, according to Ukrainian police.
An investigation into who ordered the alleged attempt to attack Sokur is continuing. The two men had pictures on them of Sokur and his car — suggesting they were hired for the job, police said.
Sokur is one of the officials in charge of cleaning up the tax service, which has historically been one of the country’s most corrupt institutions. Employees are known to work in conjunction with criminal groups to evade tax.
Despite the war with Russia, the Ukrainian government has sought to root out criminal links and fire any officials involved in the schemes.
Sokur was allegedly targeted because of his role in going after various “clans” comprised of organised crime groups and government employees, including in the tax services, according to Danylo Hetmantsev, head of the tax committee in Ukraine’s parliament.
The MP described the incident as an “assassination attempt”. Hetmantsev shared pictures of the arrests on his Telegram channel, showing the two suspects in handcuffs, face down on the ground, alongside a black bag containing two baseball bats.
Police did not elaborate on the intentions of the alleged assailants.
More than 100 senior tax officials had been fired in the past year, half of whom were connected to tax evasion schemes, mostly for not paying VAT on alcohol, cigarettes and fuel, Hetmantsev said.
Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a Ukrainian MP from the opposition Holos party, said the alleged attempt to attack Sokur was an indicator that he and other senior tax officials were “doing their work well”.
“In the last two years, the management has changed and they have really been trying to fight this,” said Zheleznyak. “So it was pretty much expected that an assassination attempt might happen.”
Analysts said that more efforts were needed, however.
Oleh Hetman, an analyst at Economic Expert Platform, said changing management and firing staff would not solve the problem.
“In the last 10 years, they have changed the heads of the tax service 15 times and it has not bought the desired result,” he said.
Hetman pointed out that tax office heads were appointed by the government in a process with “no competition or transparency”. This failure was evidenced by successive surveys showing that the tax office was perceived as “one of the most corrupt” institutions in Ukraine, along with customs.
A piece of legislation to “completely revamp” the tax service was drafted in April but has stalled. Some of the main action points listed in the draft include an international expert committee to appoint the leadership of Ukraine’s tax service, employees reapplying for their jobs and an ethics body.
