Transparency International has released the Global Corruption Barometer 2016 for Europe:

The map above shows the answer to the most interesting question in the survey: “Did you or any member of your household make an unofficial payment or gift when using [a public service] over the past 12 months“?

In the last survey from 2013, at the height of the kleptocratic Yanukovych regime, that figure was 37% in Ukraine.

In this survey, it was 38% – the same as in Uganda.

In other words, more than three years after the beginning of the “Revolution of Dignity,” there has been absolutely no appreciable decline in corruption in Ukraine.

This is, incidentally, confirmed by other figures (earlier I posted a poll showing the bribery rate increasing from 37% to 40% between 2014 and 2015).

But what can one expect? What Westerners don’t get is that is that Maidanist Ukraine’s commitment to transparency is one big fat cargo cult. But what else can you expect in a country where “activists” turn up to “anti-corruption forums” in Lexuses and Mercedes? Where the physical symbol of the previous regime’s corruption, a golden loaf, went missing soon after the “revolution”? In a country that overthrew one kleptocrat and replaced him with a post-Soviet oligarch and one of the godfathers of Ukrainian clan politics?

To be sure, Russia with its 34% bribery rate (equivalent to Cote d’Ivoire), the joint-third worst in Europe after Moldova and Ukraine, has nothing to write home about either. It is a disturbing indication that there have been no improvements in everyday corruption during Putin’s time in power.

But at least Russia didn’t wage a war against its own people in the name of Poroshenko’s frescoes, oops, I meant “European values.”

But anyway – commenting on the map in general, the results are very much as expected based on country stereotypes and other subjective rankings like the CPI. That said, it’s worth nothing that Greece has made significant progress – whereas in 2013, 22% of Greeks had paid bribes, this year only 10% did.