The State as a Racket
or
Corruption as Government
In Ukraine, corruption scandals have become a ritual repeated with exhausting regularity. A loud exposé, searches, details leaked to the press, a resignation, the appointment of a new person. Release on bail from a Ukrainian pretrial detention center is the same as release into freedom, since the trials themselves either have no future or last forever.
In early September 2026, corruption scandals simultaneously reached the immediate circles of the presidents of the Philippines and Ukraine. In Manila, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Martin Romualdez, cousin of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was arrested on charges of receiving kickbacks exceeding $100 million. In Kiev, Operation Carthage exposed a network of fraudulent call centers operating under the patronage of employees of the Prosecutor General’s Office, after which Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko resigned.
Both countries demonstrated a public reaction. Marcos declared that he was not the president of his family and not the president of his friends. Zelenskiy held a meeting with Kravchenko, after which the latter left office. This is where the parallels end.
In the Philippines, the scandal set in motion a mechanism of institutional investigation. A specialized court issued an arrest warrant for a close relative of the president. Sitting senators were detained. Bank accounts of officials and contractors were frozen. Ministers resigned, the president publicly acknowledged violations in the use of funds and reported on the progress of the investigation. The arrest of the president’s cousin cannot easily be dismissed as an imitation of anti-corruption activity. The judicial machine proved capable of grinding through even those who belong to the family circle of the head of state.
It should be understood that both the Philippines and Ukraine are among countries with high levels of corruption, and they sit near each other in the relevant global rankings. Yet the Philippines turned out to be institutionally stronger when it came to punishing senior officials for corruption crimes.
In Ukraine, scandals flare up with incredible frequency, yet the result is always the same. Officials resign, sometimes disappear from public view, sometimes manage to leave the country — a privilege unavailable to any man of draft age — but they do not end up behind bars. Kravchenko, who, judging by the published materials, was the very “Boss” who oversaw the protection racket around fraudulent call centers, called his resignation political. His deputy, in whose home investigators found jewelry and expensive watches, also resigned, while remaining free.
Earlier, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova, head of the presidential office Andrey Yermak, deputy head of the office Irina Mudrya, and many others were accused of corruption. They all lost their positions. None lost their freedom.
The fate of Irina Mudraya, former deputy head of the presidential office, is especially revealing. She is currently in a pretrial detention center, yet even here the question arises: is her arrest the result of a real fight against corruption, or the outcome of an internal bureaucratic war in which Zelenskiy was forced to surrender part of his team in order to preserve control over the rest? Investigations by the European-curated anti-corruption structures NABU and SAP are often used not as instruments of justice, but as weapons in the struggle for influence among factions inside Ukrainian power and their Western handlers.
The difference between the two countries lies not in the scale of corruption, but in what happens to elites after exposure. In the Philippines, an investigation leads to court decisions, arrests, and public discussion about the limits of responsibility in power. Marcos is forced to operate within institutional logic: if a court orders the arrest of his relative, he cannot simply cancel that decision.
No such logic exists in Ukraine. Corruption scandals there have become a ritual repeated with exhausting regularity. A loud exposé, searches, details leaked to the press, a resignation, the appointment of a new person — and a few months later the performance begins again. Release on bail from a pretrial detention center, even after charges have been filed, is equivalent to release into freedom in Ukraine, because court proceedings in Zelenskiy-controlled courts either go nowhere or last forever.
During Zelenskiy’s rule, five prosecutors general have changed, yet not a single top official from his inner circle has gone to prison on corruption charges.
The reason lies in the nature of Ukrainian power itself. Zelenskiy has built a system in which corruption is not a deviation, but a mechanism of governance. Officials’ loyalty is purchased through access to rents. If everyone involved were truly prosecuted, the system would stop functioning. Therefore, the reaction to exposés is always the same: remove from the board those who have become too visible, while preserving the principle itself.
The comparison between the Philippines and Ukraine reveals the fundamental difference between two types of corruption regimes. In the Philippines, corruption exists inside the system, but the system retains the capacity for self-cleansing. Philippine institutions, even under pressure from circumstance, can work against the interests of the ruling family. In Ukraine, corruption has become a system-forming element of power, and therefore every anti-corruption action inevitably turns into imitation. Resignations happen, scandals are covered, but no truly important figure bears responsibility.
The Philippines is going through a crisis that may weaken the president before the next elections. Yet the very ability to pass through such a crisis without destroying statehood speaks to an internal margin of resilience. While in Manila a court issues arrest warrants for relatives of the head of state, in Kiev another prosecutor general writes a resignation letter, and the corruption machine continues to work in its usual mode.
The final difference is brutally simple. In the Philippines, corruption exists inside the state. In Ukraine, the state exists inside corruption. That is why the Philippine scandal may weaken the president, but it will not destroy the country. And the Ukrainian scandal, even the loudest one, will never touch those who actually run the system.
Because the system itself is corruption.