Ukraine economy minister resigns

MOSCOW - In a blow to hopes that Ukraine will be able to overcome a decades-long struggle with corruption and mismanagement, the country's Western-trained economy minister resigned Wednesday, saying he had been unable to beat back corruption.

Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius said that he had come under pressure from senior allies of the country's president to make patronage appointments in state-owned companies and to appoint unqualified deputies who would have overseen the most lucrative industries in Ukraine.

The resignation fed growing concerns from Ukraine's allies that the country remains stuck in corrupt deal-making almost two years after pro-Western protesters overthrew President Viktor Yanukovych, whom they condemned as corrupt.

"We learned to manage the resistance of the old system, but it turned out that some of the new people around are even worse than the old ones," Abromavicius told reporters in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev on Wednesday. "Neither I nor my team have any desire to be a cover for open corruption, or to be a marionette of those who want to establish control over state money. I do not want to go to Davos and talk about our successes, while at the same time deals are being concluded behind my back in the interests of certain people."

Abromavicius, who was born in Lithuania, was one of a small team of Western-trained foreigners whom President Petro Poroshenko invited to join the government after his May 2014 election. The perception at the time was that Ukraine was so corrupt that the only people who could be fully trusted to fight it were people who were not even Ukrainian. Abromavicius naturalized in order to take the post. Another foreign appointee was Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, who was appointed as a regional governor and has also clashed with what he says is entrenched corruption among Ukraine's new elite.

Abromavicius said that he decided to resign after one of Poroshenko's closest allies, businessman and lawmaker Ihor Kononenko, tried to appoint unqualified deputy heads of the economy ministry who would have overseen the state-owned natural gas company NAK Neftegaz and Ukraine's defense producers.