RFE/RL investigative journalist Katya Gorchinskaya has been looking at how a senior prosecutor under Yanukovych has managed to sidestep lustration:
KYIV -- Ukrainian prosecutor Oleh Valendyuk should have been out of a job last fall, the victim of a lustration law meant to clear away members of former President Viktor Yanukovych's team after his ouster at the hands of pro-European protesters.
Instead, Valendyuk holds a higher position than ever: he is the top prosecutor in the capital, Kyiv.
His story is a case study in the government's struggles to put the corruption-riddled past behind it and start with a clean slate, setting the stage for reforms needed to improve the nation's economy and make it less vulnerable to Russia.
The position he held before the Euromaidan protests toppled Yanukovych in February 2014 put Valendyuk squarely in the ranks of officials subject to lustration and barred from holding public office under a law adopted in September.
But Valendyuk used his connections, his 18 years of experience, and his intimate knowledge of Ukraine's graft-marred legal system to win an exception.
And he did it in just three business days.
Read the entire article here
Meanwhile, here's a peripheral but pertinent development in Russia (from RFE/RL's news desk):
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the creation of a new reserve force as part of steps to improve Russia's military readiness and training.
Putin's decree, published late on July 17, ordered the government to find financing for the force from the existing Defense Ministry budget.
The move comes as Russia's relations with the West fell to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War over the crisis in Ukraine.
The new reserve force will be distinct from the existing military reserves because the personnel will train regularly and will be paid a monthly sum.
Russia already has several million military reservists consisting of former servicemen, but they do little training due to restrictions on how often they can be called up.
(Reuters, Interfax)