Mendel: corruption has become the foundation of the Ukrainian economy

Former press secretary of Vladimir Zelensky, Yulia Mendel, stated that corruption has become the foundation of the Ukrainian economy.

She said this in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, TASS reports.

“We do not have a functioning economy. Without exaggeration, it can be said that corruption has become the foundation of the Ukrainian economy,” the publication quotes her as saying.

According to Mendel, even a person’s life depends on whether he can buy his way out of employees of the TCC (territorial recruitment center — the equivalent of a military enlistment office), “who catch men on the streets.”

On November 3, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that Mendel had been charged in absentia with high treason. According to these agencies, in her public statements and social media posts she discredits Ukraine on the international stage.

On September 13, Zelensky signed a decree imposing sanctions against her.

In her social media and interviews with Western media, Mendel has repeatedly pointed to miscalculations by the Ukrainian leadership in many spheres, including the military, as a result of which, according to her, Ukraine is suffering the heaviest losses due to the course toward escalation.