The Sunday Show: NABU Auditor, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Year, Arrests in Moldova

This Week On Sunday Show:

✅ Ukraine Appoints Auditor For Anti-Сorruption Bureau

Ukraine's main anti-corruption institution - the Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), now has its first auditor. The purpose of the audit is to assess the overall effectiveness of the Bureau and to examine the state of criminal proceedings.

Ukrainian Prime Minister, Volodymyr Groysman, has appointed Ukrainian lawyer and academic Mykhailo Buromenskiy as the auditor. But why has this appointment divided civil society into two parts – those who support it and those who stand against it? We discuss it with experts.

Featuring guests:

Oleksandr Kalitenko, expert for political analysis at Transparency International

Bohdan Kryklyvenko, Head of the office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights

✅ A Year Of Disputable Work By Ukraine's Prosecutor General

It's been one year since Yuriy Lutsenko – who was previously the head of the President Poroshenko faction – was appointed the country's Prosecutor General. He was promoted despite lacking a law degree or background in law-enforcement. He promised to radically change the work of the Prosecutor General’s office. However, his work in this position raised many questions and provoked controversies. In particular: is the Prosecutor General a political figure first of all or a law enforcement body? We analyse this in the studio.

Featuring guests:

Anastasia Krasnosilska, expert at Anti Corruption Action Centre

✅ Progress And Failures Of The Reform Of The Ukrainian Parliament, Assessed

The European Parliament monitoring mission was launched in 2012 and aims to facilitate reform and modernisation in the Ukrainian parliament. The mid-term of the Verkhovna Rada's work ended in May. Society has put a lot of faith in this Verkhovna Rada, which was elected after Maidan. People hoped for swift changes in the work of the parliament. However, this hasn't happened. What progress has there been since the start of the European Parliament Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine? How is the controversial law on e-declarations for anti-corruption activists seen abroad? We raised these issues in an interview with Pat Cox, a member of the European Parliament Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine

✅ Arrests In Moldova: Fighting Corruption Or Selective Justice

The mayor of Moldova's capital Dorin Chirtoaca was put under house arrest Friday on suspicion of corruption in a city parking contract. He is one of the leaders of the Liberal Party of Moldova, which supports strong ties with Romania. The other detained official is as well-known opposition politician - Chiril Lucinschi who's the son of the former president of Moldova - and a former MP of an opposition Liberal Democratic Party. What does it all mean bearing in mind that Moldova elected new president Igor Dodon last winter. Yet famous businessman and Moldova's richest person Vladimir Plahotniuk, who's also the leader of the Democratic Party, tries to strengthen his influence and allegedly may benefit from the arrests.

✅ NATO Summit: What's New For Eastern Europe

World leaders, including US President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, gathered in Brussels for the highly-anticipated NATO summit on May 25. It was the first NATO summit with US President Trump. In his speech inaugurating the alliance’s new headquarters, the American president could have singled out Russia as one of the main threats facing NATO, yet this wasn't the case. While the Central European governments expressed optimism that the United States remained committed to NATO. Hromadske's team has travelled to Brussels and focused on what the Summit means for the region

✅ Democracy In Decline: The Case Of The Czech Republic

Hromadske starts a series looking closely at cases from a few countries.
The Czech Republic is one of the first former East Bloc countries to join NATO, while its stance on Russia remains ambivalent. The country’s energy sphere remains highly dependent on imports from Russia. Russian intelligence’s presence in the Czech Republic is significant, and the country’s intelligence services are aware of this issue. Within the next year there will be two elections – Parliamentary in October 2017 and Presidential in January 2018. They could be pivotal to the Czech Republic’s direction.

Featuring guests:

Ondřej Kundra, Czech journalist, the author of the book "Putin's Agents"

Josef Pazderka, Czech journalist

✅ Eastern Ukraine: Blockade Leaves People Without Salaries, Children Becoming Orphans

News about wounded civilans is coming regularly from Eastern Ukraine's frontline. Official Ukrainian sources say about 8 were wounded in the town of Krasnohorivka today. While in mid-May a similar situation occurred in another Ukrainian-controlled town – Avdiivka where 5 civilians lost their lives. 4 of these deaths occurred when a projectile missile fired from the occupied territories struck a courtyard of a house and left children orphaned. There is a certain fatigue from the media and society is getting used to the killing. Yet Hromadske stays on the story and recently travelled to Avdiivlka to report on the orphans there.