The Trump administration is eyeing changes to the structure of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), including less “centralization in Washington, D.C.,” according to two recent memos obtained by The Hill. One, sent out by FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton last week, said the agency “must reduce unnecessary centralization in Washington, D.C. and strengthen the roles…

The Trump administration is eyeing changes to the structure of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), including less “centralization in Washington, D.C.,” according to two recent memos obtained by The Hill. One, sent out by FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton last week, said the agency “must reduce unnecessary centralization in Washington, D.C. and strengthen the roles…

The EU has demanded a reform of Ukraine's notoriously corrupt and politicized prosecution service and called for making the procedure for picking the prosecutor general less political and more merit-based. Meanwhile, anti-corruption activists and pro-reform lawmakers have accused the Ukrainian authorities of sabotaging rule of law reforms and resisting the demand for depoliticizing the Prosecutor General's Office.

Just as Vladimir and Estragon waited for Godot in Beckett’s famous play, the world may now be waiting for Xi Jinping in the present political drama. America is stuck in two wars. In Ukraine, it would like to reach a compromise with Russia. In the Middle East, it is trying to bring down Tehran’s regime, […]

The post Wars and the oil blockades may be waiting for Xi’s party congress appeared first on Asia Times.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies just clawed back millions for the state budget. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and the State Property Fund have returned about $5.1 million to the state budget, the bureau says.

NABU and SAPO were created in 2015 after the Euromaidan revolution as independent bodies to fight high-level corruption, and their independence is a core condition for Ukraine's path to the EU. This recovery is the kind of concrete payoff that EU-backed reform was meant to produce.

Investigating one case, detectives and prosecutors found that the leadership of a regional branch of the State Property Fund had failed to act. Because of that inaction, the state risked losing millions of dollars.

To head off the loss, NABU and SAPO alerted the fund’s central leadership and gave it access to part of the investigation materials.

How the agencies turned a case into cash

The fix came from sharing what the investigation had uncovered. After working through the data, the State Property Fund took the necessary steps and secured the full budget amount, the bureau says.

NABU and SAPO continue to cooperate with other state bodies to protect the country’s economic interests and prevent corruption crimes, the bureau adds. The agencies framed the case as proof that enforcement, beyond investigation alone, can return money the state would otherwise lose.

Why these agencies matter beyond one case

The recovery lands at a fraught moment for the two institutions. Their independence has been under sustained pressure, and in July 2026 parliament briefly stripped it before mass protests and EU warnings forced a reversal.

In 2025, Brussels tied as much as 50 billion euros in aid and the pace of accession talks to the agencies’ autonomy, treating NABU and SAPO as pillars of the rule-of-law reforms Ukraine promised on its way into the bloc.

Ukraine is thinning its state bureaucracy. Central government bodies will cut more than 4,000 vacant positions in the first stage of a civil service reform, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi says, with the number of deputy ministers to fall by about 20% and deputy heads of other central bodies by nearly 18%.

The reform aims to build a professional state apparatus that can carry out tasks quickly and effectively, Koretskyi said. It comes as Ukraine faces an economic crunch, and about $20 billion in EU aid is on hold, blocked by reforms Kyiv has not completed.

The cuts are only the visible first step, and the final headcount is not set yet. The number of deputies will be tied to the volume of tasks each office carries, Koretskyi states.

"The most important thing is that we are running a functional diagnostic of the state apparatus," he continues.

The Ukrainian government will assess which functions the bodies have and whether they align with the state's realities and priorities, and only then will it define the structure and final headcount.

Training is tied to the job

Another track reshapes how officials learn. Training will be linked to the tasks of each specific post, with outreach and internships for young people and a separate program for veterans, Koretskyi says.

The Public Administration Council, which brings together officials, members of parliament, and experts, has resumed work, presenting a detailed plan on the task and assigning responsibility for each area.

The squeeze that forces the cuts

The reform lands in a tight budget. The war is costing Ukraine about $155 billion a year, and with Western aid running late, Kyiv has frozen almost everything except the army, pensions, and public wages.

On 1 October, the state suspended a veterans' gym subsidy that had cost about $13 million and drawn more than 800,000 users, for lack of funds.