Ukraine Chooses Its Top Customs Official. But What For?

Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth: there is no spoon.
—The Matrix

The two finalists in the competition to head Ukraine’s customs service are Ruslan Damentsov and Orest Mandzii, both senior NABU officials. The final choice rests with finance minister Serhii Marchenko. But the key question through which this competition should be viewed is a broader one: what exactly is its purpose? What are we holding it for?

And in trying to answer that seemingly simple question, we quickly get to the heart of the matter. There is, in fact, no real competition and no real reform. Not because nothing is happening in a formal sense, but because, first, it is impossible to modernize and reform individual state institutions when there is no broader strategy for the country’s development and transformation. And second, let’s be honest: the current authorities does not want to change the corrupt and criminal system of governance. Customs—with its slush funds and schemes—is merely one striking element of that larger structure. But it is precisely this element that shouts the loudest: in the president’s office, this modus operandi suits everyone just fine.

So what, then, is actually happening around this heavily advertised customs “reset”? That is what we are going to talk about.

Let us begin with a simple question: who needs this competition today, and where did it come from in the first place?

Formally, the basis for the selection was the memorandum between Ukraine and the IMF, which defines the appointment of a permanent head of customs through a transparent competition as a structural benchmark. Although the original deadline was the end of 2025, it was later pushed back to the end of March 2026.

We will not get into how such requirements end up on the IMF’s list. That is a separate issue. Put simply, the competition for the post of customs chief is part of Ukraine’s international commitments.

But does the government actually need this competition and this customs reboot?

Of course it does. Just not in the sense of solving the existing problems. What it needs is a way to share responsibility for the future chaos in this institution with Ukraine’s international partners.

You wanted a competition? We held one.

You insisted that international experts—people you yourselves recommended—should play the key role in the selection? Fine, we did exactly that, including strict integrity and transparency criteria.

Which means that whatever happens to customs after this competition is no longer the sole responsibility of the president, the government, the security services or anyone else. It is now also your responsibility, dear international partners.

So we will not accept one-sided complaints about smuggling and customs schemes. Elegant, isn’t it?

If we are talking about whether the government and the president ever genuinely wanted to change how customs works, then the window of opportunity was open in 2019–2020. And, frankly, there was such a desire then. We saw it and supported it in every way we could.

But that brief period of real opportunity and real willingness to modernize quickly gave way to an endless era of corrupt control. And today, nobody needs to trade that in for reform.

In the autumn of 2024, my long article, Undoing the Contraband State, came out. In it, I described in detail why the fight against smuggling had failed and the key challenges that those in power found easier to take over than to overcome.

That is precisely why the competition initiated by international partners—and the attempt to change something—fits neither the current framework of state governance nor the logic of how the system actually works. Yet the authorities support it anyway because it helps remove one more point of tension in relations with partners.

“You wanted a competition? Here you are. But we are confident it poses no threat to us whatsoever.” That is more or less the whispered message the authorities are sending their partners.

And really, what threat could it possibly pose when, in organizing the competition, no one is even capable of clearly formulating the task we are supposedly trying to accomplish through it? What exactly are we holding it for?

To fight corruption and make sure scum and thieves are not appointed to office? That is far too abstract and unrealistic a framework.

To join the EU? Fine. And when, exactly, is accession supposed to happen? Exactly.

Which brings me back to the question I asked at the outset: what is the country’s broader strategy today? What reforms are happening in other related institutions? What about tax reform, security services, courts and the rest? Within larger plan of change is supposedly driving all of it forward? We understand perfectly well that customs cannot be separated from the country’s overall economic architecture. It is one part of the whole. An important part, yes, but still just one part.

The answer we will get, of course, is: what kind of plan can there be when the country is at war? Everything will come after victory. And it is hard to argue with that. But if everything comes after the war, and customs is being “reformed” now, then what exactly are we doing? As Vladimir Vysotsky once sang, “groping our way through the taiga at night.”

That is precisely why the inability to define the core purpose of the reform makes it entirely safe for the authorities. In the existing corrupt and criminal system in which customs operates, you cannot change anything if you have no goal.

And if we are told that real, systemic change will come only after victory and elections, then let us be honest: the next real window for a genuine reset will come only after a change of government. For now, we are simply putting on a show.

The members of the competition commission have fully borne that out through their own actions. During interviews with candidates, they focused not on identifying ways to reform customs or discussing difficult structural problems—such as the influence of law enforcement bodies or clan-based groups at the border—but almost exclusively on integrity.

Questions like, “How did you sell a 2014 Daewoo Matiz, and how did you buy a four-square-meter storage room?” seemed to interest the commission more than the fact that NABU had uncovered customs slush funds, million-dollar job sales and schemes involving vans and trucks. The commission did not ask about those things at all.

They spent between 30 and 60 minutes discussing asset declarations and searching for signs of integrity. They gave candidates two minutes to present their vision for the future of customs.

There were situational tasks too. To put it mildly, they were bizarre.

“You have planned a conference with your deputy. On the day of the conference, a media report comes out saying he is living with his mistress even though he is married. What do you do as his boss?” Seriously?

It is obvious that the international experts on the commission either have only a very limited grasp of the real problems facing our customs service, or they are simply playing a demonstrative game by formal rules.

One important point that few people noticed was the complete absence of any attempt to derail or block the competition itself. No “letters of warning” from the Security Service about Russian passports allegedly held by candidates, no lawsuits from MPs challenging the legitimacy of the competition, nothing of the sort. Total silence.

Strange? No. Entirely predictable. That only happens when a process poses absolutely no threat to the system as it exists.

And the customs competition turned out to be exactly that.

It was striking to watch how nearly all the contenders, while sketching out broadly similar visions of the customs service of the future, said some version of this: “Once we join the EU, our customs service will become part of the wider European customs space, and most of these problems will simply disappear”—as though the pain will go away if we just lie down for a while.

But no one on the commission asked the obvious follow-up: what is the real prospect of EU membership, and how is customs supposed to function until then? And for how long? Two years? Five? Fifteen? Twelve years of dreaming have already gone by. How many more lie ahead, and how does the candidate plan to change the criminal status quo all that time—the very status quo he is supposedly being chosen to dismantle?

The commission showed no interest in that question. Which is a pity.

Even a simple follow-up about our place in the EU customs space—where every country competes with the others for business to clear goods through its territory—would have backed the candidates into a corner.

The point is that within the EU, the country that processes an importer’s customs duties keeps only 25 percent of the amount collected; the rest goes into the common budget of the European family. And that 25 percent is fought over fiercely.

What advantage could the port of Pivdennyi in Odesa offer a German importer over the port of Rotterdam, which handles more containers in a single day than Odesa does in several months?

None—except “schemes” and a system of extracting payments from importers, something Europeans have no use for. In other words, EU accession, when it comes to customs, would bring us a whole new set of problems. We would simply lose all those border revenues. We are not ready for that.

But the interviews never got that far. No one was interested.

So the aim of the competition is not to find a candidate who understands how to break a criminal system and build something in its place, preparing us for the future. It is simply to find a decent, honest person. No one disputes the importance of those qualities, but they should not be the only measure.

But let us indulge in a little wishful thinking.

Say the commission picks a candidate who genuinely wants to leave a mark on history and is ready to break the back of customs corruption and smuggling. Picture that for a moment.

What is the source of this candidate’s legitimacy in office—the thing he can rely on to change things, dismantle schemes and be confident he can stay in the saddle?

Is it the president, whose shadow stands behind him? No. He is not from the president’s team.

Is it parliamentary groups that voted for him, giving him a coalition quota of trust and support so that MPs would go to the wall for him if needed? Again, no.

The government? No one there even knew what he looked like before the appointment. He is an outsider.

So his legitimacy, his only source of support, comes from a randomly assembled competition commission that vanishes like morning mist the moment the final vote is over.

In practice, the candidate is left alone almost immediately after appointment, face to face with a system that generates millions of dollars in criminal cash collections every month, serves people across every branch of power and feeds all law enforcement bodies with shadow cash. And then there he is, the man international partners have entrusted with stopping all of it. Best of luck to him.

But jokes aside, the moment he is appointed, the candidate will face a simple choice: either conflict with the system or contact with it. In other words, he either becomes part of the very criminal processes he was chosen to fight, or he enters into a hard confrontation with that same system—which will break him quickly and push him out of the game.

Which pill would you choose? The red one, with its harsh reality, or the blue one, with its blissful oblivion?

All right. Let us say you choose the red pill, take on the fight, and somehow survive.

What tools for reform has the competition commission actually given you?

Does the Finance Ministry, as part of this reform, have any obligation to allocate you a budget, fund salaries or pay for recertification and recruitment so you can bring in people on decent terms? No, it has no such obligation. And it has no desire to do so either. No budgets will be provided. There will only be problems and obstacles.

Just ask Oleksandr Tsyvinskyi how, after his appointment as head of the Economic Security Bureau, every hryvnia for the development of the ESB had to be fought over—and at what pace, and with what obstacles, the agency’s reboot has been taking place.

You will not be given a single cent either. Of course, everything will change instantly if you show loyalty to the system. The Finance Ministry will immediately find resources for you. But that is not why you entered the competition.

And what about your team?

To draw a parallel with the ESB, you cannot simply bring your own people over from NABU here. Customs is a highly peculiar institution that requires dozens, even hundreds, of professionals in narrow fields. So whichever way you look at it, you will need people from the existing system. And they are the very people who will become your support base as you try to acquire new knowledge.

So the system will offer you support here as well. And you will have no one else. Nor will you have the large body of highly specialized knowledge about how customs works—knowledge without which you will drown in bureaucratic procedure.

Remember how the new customs chief Pavlo Riabikin ended up with the legendary and highly experienced Ruslan Cherkaskyi as his deputy? It will be much the same here. To paraphrase Riabikin’s remark about pickles in a barrel: “There is enough brine for all the fresh cucumbers.”

How do you get out of that web? But that is exactly where this article began. It is impossible to reform one of the key state institutions through which colossal financial flows pass without a broader reboot of the country itself. Without creating an ecosystem of change—one that draws in people who genuinely want transformation and are ready to carry it through. Either everyone gives up corruption, or no one does. And that window of opportunity will open only after the war, with a renewal of the political class. Until then, everything is deferred until victory and elections.

There is, however, one more important nuance in this story that should not be ignored. The fact that people from the anti-corruption system have made it to the final round is, without question, a signal. Perhaps not of the system changing here and now, but of an alternative beginning to appear within it.

Yes, the new head of customs will be entering an environment that is hostile by definition, as an outsider in a system built over decades according to very different rules. And without political will at the state level to break that model, his room for action is objectively limited.

But any change begins with people willing, at the very least, to question the rules. And competitions—however flawed they may be—remain one of the few tools through which such people can enter the system.

The only question is whether they will have enough resources, both internal and public, not to become part of it. And whether that fragile chance for change is not neutralized before it even has a chance to show itself.