"While we were talking, I got interested in Abakumov himself. As he was explaining his motivations, I was struck by the surprising contrast between people like him-the Ukrainian civil servants and civil-society activists who have been demanding transparency from their leaders for two decades-and the American and Russian negotiators who met this week in Moscow, perhaps to decide Ukraine's fate."
"Abakumov's career was directly shaped by his country's history. Until 2014, he was a police detective in the city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. At the beginning of that year, a series of mass protests in Kyiv persuaded Ukraine's corrupt, authoritarian, pro-Russia president, Viktor Yanukovych, to flee the country. Furious at the loss of their puppet, the Russians immediately invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine, including Luhansk."
Oleksandr Abakumov is a senior detective at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine investigating a kickback scheme in the energy sector. Ukrainian civil servants and civil-society activists have spent two decades demanding transparency and accountable government. The contrast between those reformers and American and Russian negotiators is stark amid talks in Moscow. Abakumov was a police detective in Luhansk until 2014, when mass protests forced Viktor Yanukovych to flee and Russia invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Popular demand for reform led to the creation of NABU to target high-level state corruption. Abakumov left Luhansk, moved to Kyiv, and joined NABU in 2016.
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