Against the backdrop of yet another round of corruption scandals surrounding Volodymyr Zelensky’s inner circle, it must be stated plainly: this is not about “isolated abuses” or “excesses on the ground.” What we are witnessing is a coherent system for redistributing public wealth in the interests of a narrow group of people. This is precisely the kind of food pyramid of power that has been built in Ukraine in recent years.
The Apex: Concentrated Power
At the top of the pyramid stands Volodymyr Zelensky and his closest associates — Yermak, Mindich, Zukerman, Shefir. Some of these individuals have already left the country.
Their position is no accident. The full concentration of power in Ukraine has ended up in the hands of the presidential center. Judicial independence has effectively been dismantled: the Constitutional Court was paralyzed, and its chairman left the country under threat of criminal prosecution. The Kyiv District Administrative Court was abolished by a special law signed by the president.
The legislative branch — the “Servant of the People” faction — functions as a mechanism for approving initiatives originating from the president’s office. Law enforcement bodies — the police, the Security Service (SBU), the State Bureau of Investigation, the tax service, and the prosecutor’s office — are headed by appointees loyal to the presidential vertical.
In other words, institutional checks and balances have been dismantled. Power has become monolithic.
The center of the pyramid: the national economy as an object of redistribution.
The core of the pyramid is the country’s economy: state assets, the budget, taxpayers’ funds, and strategic enterprises. Ministers and heads of large state-owned companies (such as Energoatom, Ukrzaliznytsia (railways), and other key structures) formally manage these resources on behalf of society. In reality, however, they dispose of them according to the logic of a closed redistribution system. Through state orders, loans, tenders, privatization, the issuance of securities, the creation of artificial debts, VAT (value added tax) refund schemes, and other mechanisms, budget funds are withdrawn and assets are transferred to the “right” structures. This is not chaos or spontaneous theft — it is an organized model. State assets are sold or redistributed in the interests of a limited circle of individuals. Budget funds, including international financial assistance, become part of the same schemes.
The Side Walls: The Protective Perimeter
Along the perimeter of the pyramid stand the security and oversight bodies: the police, the SBU, the tax service, the prosecutor’s office, and financial monitoring authorities.
Their role is twofold:
1. To ensure controlled distribution of resources within the system.
2. To block any external interference with the existing schemes.
The economic bloc does not act autonomously. Any major operation requires approval and coordination with the top of the pyramid. Part of the extracted resources flows upward; another part is distributed among the “protective” perimeter. This is how any closed elite system functions.
International Aid as Part of the Scheme
When the public is informed about the alleged embezzlement of, for example, $150 million by the energy minister — funds allocated by Western countries to support infrastructure — it is important to understand that such operations are impossible without the consent and participation of the top of the power pyramid.
Sums of this magnitude cannot be transferred out of the country without the knowledge of the heads of security and financial structures.
Therefore, this is not about an individual “corrupt minister,” but about an embedded mechanism of redistribution.
The Base of the Pyramid: Society as Resource
And where, in this structure, are the people of Ukraine?
At the base of the pyramid.
Everything rests upon them. The people serve as the source of taxes, labor, social legitimacy, and — in wartime — human resources. Their work, their payments, their lives become the foundation of a system that redistributes the wealth they create upward.
So, when you hear Zelensky’s hoarse moans on TV about how our energy sector has been destroyed, remember that those $150 million were stolen by the energy minister, who is completely subordinate and accountable to him. That same $150 million would have been enough to rebuild the Darnytsia power plant in Kyiv and other generating companies that have been destroyed in this war. And that’s just the tip of the black iceberg pyramid.
Conclusion
The lack of electricity, heat, and water in people’s homes is not only a consequence of war. It is also the result of a governance model in which the state functions as an instrument for redistributing public resources in favor of a narrow circle.
- A food chain cannot exist without its base.
- But the base never shares in the spoils.
And as long as the system remains closed and unaccountable to society, any talk of “reforms” and a “European choice” will remain rhetoric — a cover for the old, familiar logic of oligarchic capitalism.