Why $100 Million in Corruption Won’t Stop Ukrainian Resistance

Bloomberg’s article about the $100 million corruption scandal in Ukraine’s energy sector contains an unexpected conclusion: this is not a cause for despair, but for understanding. And the author, perhaps without fully realizing it, became the first Western journalist to grasp the fundamental difference between Ukrainians and imperial peoples.

Ukrainians don’t wait for leaders. They don’t seek tsars. And that’s precisely why corruption scandals that, according to Western analysts’ logic, “should” destroy Ukrainian resistance actually prove its indestructibility.

The Morning of February 24: When Leaders Turned Out to Be Unnecessary

When Russian-fascist troops invaded Ukraine, what the Kremlin expected and the West feared didn’t happen. There was no panic waiting for “orders from above.” There was no confusion from the absence of a “single decision-making center.”

Instead, something occurred that overturns all imperial experience of managing masses: people self-organized. The same people who yesterday might have fought at rallies for different politicians today stood shoulder to shoulder at checkpoints. Civilians, military, police — all mixed together in a unified impulse of resistance. Without waiting for orders. Without looking into the “leader’s” mouth. Simply defending their land.

This was a shock for everyone — for the enemy and, as it turned out, for “friends.” Because Western media are accustomed to different logic: there’s a leader, there’s a vertical of power, there are subordinates who execute. Without a leader — chaos and capitulation.

The Myth of Zelensky the Messiah: A Joint Project of Moscow and Washington

The cult of Zelensky is a product of Western and Russian media, not Ukrainian reality. Both sides, for different reasons, created the image of an “irreplaceable leader” on whom everything depends.

Russia did this to have a clear target for propaganda and possible “decapitation” of Ukraine. The West — because it’s more convenient: there’s one person you can negotiate with, who “controls” the situation, who can “surrender” or “not surrender” positions.

But Ukrainians know what neither Moscow, nor Berlin, nor even Washington understands: they need their country, not another tsar. Zelensky is a project manager, not a messiah. And if he turns out to be an incompetent or corrupt project manager — they’ll replace him.

That’s precisely why all scenarios like “if Zelensky falls — Ukraine falls” are written by people with imperial consciousness. They cannot imagine a people who act independently of the “father of the nation’s” will.

Corruption as a Sacrifice for the State

Yes, Ukrainians turned a blind eye to corruption. Yes, everyone knew everything. Yes, conscious citizens remained silent instead of sounding the alarm.

But this wasn’t “supporting corruption” or “agreeing with it.” It was a cold, cynical calculation: better to temporarily tolerate thieves in the rear than to give the enemy an opportunity to use internal strife to collapse the front.

Ukrainians made a choice: the state is more important than clean government. The country is more important than personal dislike of individual officials. The nation’s survival is more important than the comfort of one’s own conscience.

This isn’t noble. It isn’t beautiful. But it works. And this — again — isn’t imperial logic, where “the people suffer for the greatness of the state.” This is the pragmatism of people who don’t idealize power but use it as a tool.

Why the Scandal Won’t Lead to Collapse

Western analysts predicting the “collapse of the Ukrainian government” over corruption scandals are simply projecting their own experience onto someone else’s reality. In their countries, such a scandal might indeed mean political catastrophe.

In wartime Ukraine, it means something entirely different: finally, we can remove those we silenced for the sake of “unity.” Finally, we can return to power structures those who left due to disappointment in leadership. Finally, we can cleanse the system of marauders.

Will there be a brief period of confusion during the power reshuffle? Perhaps. Will the enemy take advantage for tactical successes? Probably. But after this, Ukrainians will get what they’ve been lacking: power without the ballast of corrupt officials, a system without rot, an army without doubts about the rear.

The Fundamental Mistake of All Empires

Imperial logic is simple: the people are a mass controlled by elites. Destroy the elite — and the mass will disintegrate. This logic has worked for millennia. It still works — in Russia, in China, in many other places.

But it doesn’t work where people don’t wait for instructions from above. Where resistance isn’t “following orders of patriotic leadership” but a natural reaction to a threat to home.

On February 24, Russians learned: in Ukraine there’s no “single center” whose destruction would lead to capitulation. Now the West has a chance to learn: in Ukraine there’s no “irreplaceable leader” whose loss would mean defeat.

A $100 million corruption scandal isn’t a mortal wound for Ukrainian resistance. It’s a surgical operation that can make it stronger. Because the most terrible thing for any system isn’t when problems exist, but when people stay silent about them.

Ukrainians stayed silent. Did their job. Now it’s time for cleanup.

Conclusion for Those Who Still Haven’t Understood

You still don’t understand who you’re dealing with — whether you’re from the Kremlin, Brussels, or Washington.

Ukrainians aren’t slaves waiting for orders. Not subjects praying to a leader. Not biomass that disintegrates without a “strong hand.”

These are pragmatists who use the state as a tool to defend their land. And if the tool is broken — they’ll repair or replace it. But they won’t surrender the land.

The scandal with Mindich and his accomplices isn’t the beginning of the end for the Ukrainian state. It’s the end of the beginning of Ukraine’s decentralized resistance model, which can now become even more effective without the burden of corruption.

You may understand this or not. But it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to understand us. You just need to not interfere.

Oleh Cheslavskyi — independent historian and analyst specializing in deconstructing imperial narratives.

Originally published at spilno.org