Thousands of Moroccans filled the streets of Rabat singing and waving flags after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution describing autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty as the most feasible solution to the decades-long territorial dispute. The US-drafted text provides international endorsement of Morocco in its dispute with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Published On 2 Nov 20252 Nov 2025
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Kyiv, Ukraine – Last week, hundreds of Ukrainians rallied in several cities to protest the government’s attempt to curb the independence of anticorruption watchdogs.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on July 22 signed a bill into law, which would revoke the autonomy of key agencies – the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).
The rare protest in the war-torn country forced the Ukrainian president to introduce a new draft bill to restore the independence of NABU and SAPO, which have been established to investigate high-level corruption and are widely seen as a symbol of democratic reforms.
So, why did Zelenskyy try to curb powers of the anticorruption agencies, and will his action dent public trust in the government crucial at a time of war against Russia?
The nationwide protests erupted in the wake of the July 22 vote in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s lower house of parliament, to approve the bill that allows the prosecutor general to oversee the two anticorruption agencies.
The prosecutor general is appointed by the president and approved by the Verkhovna Rada, where Zelenskyy’s Public Servant party holds a majority.
It was seen as an attempt by the government to control the two agencies, which were created in the wake of the 2013-14 pro-democracy Euromaidan protests. Many believe it’s a setback from the years of reforms following the removal of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
The protesters held banners with slogans reading “Sham!” “Don’t make a step back, there’s an abyss there,” and “Corruption applauds” the new bill.
The rallies took place in Kyiv as well as in large cities such as the Black Sea port of Odesa and Lviv, known as Ukraine’s cultural capital.
NABU has been probing a string of senior officials and lawmakers, including those within Zelenskyy’s Public Servant party.
Oleksiy, who enlisted to join the army in 2022, wonders why he should keep fighting on the front lines of eastern Ukraine while officials engage in corruption.
“What’s the point if I go back home and my family is surrounded by corruption everywhere,” the 42-year-old construction manager told Al Jazeera.
“Judges, officials, even school teachers all say, ‘Give, give, give,’” he said, asking to withhold his last name and details of his military service, in accordance with the wartime protocol.
Oleksiy, who is on a break from his service to visit his two children and ailing mother, took part in the largest antigovernment rallies in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
The new law envisaged executive control over NABU and SAPO as the prosecutor general’s office could access their information, give them binding directives, transfer cases and close down investigations.
The bill “could finally destroy the independence of the anticorruption system in Ukraine”, NABU said.
Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the new law “risks weakening Ukraine’s democratic foundations and its future integration with Europe”. She called for the repeal of the law.
Zelenskyy, a former comedian and political rookie who came to power in 2019 on an anticorruption ticket, defended the law, claiming that the NABU and SAPO have to “get rid of Russian influence”.
His allegation followed the arrest of two NABU staffers suspected of working for Russian intelligence, and charges against outspoken anticorruption campaigner Vitaly Shabunin.
Shabunin was accused of “evading military service”, but his supporters called the charges trumped-up, and almost 60 anticorruption and nongovernmental groups signed a joint appeal in his defence.
A Kyiv-based political analyst says there are two popular theories about why Zelenskyy initiated the bill.
“One is that NABU allegedly closed in on Zelenskyy’s inner circle,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta think tank, told Al Jazeera.
NABU accused Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, Zelenskyy’s closest ally and lifelong friend, of taking kickbacks worth $346,000 from a real estate developer in a deal that cost the government $24m.
Zelenskyy’s press office didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s phone calls and text messages.
“Or this is an attempt to control NABU’s actions in order not to overtly politicise them, not to provoke domestic political wars during the war with Russia,” Fesenko said.
“But I think it has to do with the activisation of the NABU on political issues that may have caused suspicion in Zelenskyy’s inner circle. That it wasn’t a fight against corruption but more of a political attack on Zelenskyy,” he said.
The protests, an anticorruption expert told Al Jazeera, have weakened Zelenskyy’s support within domestic political circles. “There was a belief in his high and stable rating,” Tetiana Shevchuk from the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a Kyiv-based group, said.
But “he no longer can demand anything from the parliament,” she said.
Zelenskyy is afraid of NABU as the only law enforcement agency that won’t open or close an investigation following a phone call from his administration, she said, referring to the centralisation of power under him.
“NABU is the only body that doesn’t do that,” Shevchuk said.
Fesenko from the Penta think tank says the politicians “underestimated” the bill’s “negative consequences”. They “didn’t think the public response would be that harsh”.
Zelenskyy has promised to submit the new bill – a move applauded by the country’s top anti-corruption investigator.
Semen Kryvonos, director of NABU, however, said that corrupt actors will step up a “dirty information campaign” against the anti-graft agencies.
Meanwhile, protest leaders say they would stop rallies only after the bill has been passed – tentatively, later this week.
Since the 2014 pro-democracy revolution or Revolution of Dignity, attempts have been made to root out endemic corruption.
Many bureaucratic procedures have been simplified and consume less time, money and nerves.
But corruption remains pervasive in the halls of justice. Ukraine ranks 105 out of 180 in Transparency International’s corruption index.
A criminal investigator who spent months putting together a string of lawsuits against a fraudster who duped dozens of people, including several lawmakers, told Al Jazeera that a corrupt judge could annul his work and the fraudster may walk free.
“We can’t guarantee any judge’s honesty,” the investigator said on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, Europe’s worst armed conflict since World War II has bred new forms of corruption.
Some officers extort bribes for letting a serviceman take leave or go to a hospital, pilfer foreign aid such as canned foods, clothes or shoes that end up on store shelves instead of the front line.
“If someone reports such an officer, they may end up in a suicide squad on zero position,” serviceman Oleksiy who took part in the protests claimed, referring to the front line positions most likely to be attacked by enemy drones.
Officers tasked with the conscription campaign have been accused of receiving bribes to smuggle people out of the country. Dozens of conscription officers have been arrested – and some had cash stashes of millions of dollars or euros or even in gold bullion.
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov was fired in 2023 after scandals involving inflated prices for military procurement, including ammunition, foodstuffs, medical equipment and winter clothing.
His successor Rustem Umerov was investigated for alleged abuse of power, NABU said in January.
The European Union said on Sunday it would freeze $1.7bn, a third of its latest aid package for Ukraine, because of the new law.
But military aid from the EU and the United States is not likely to be interrupted, said Lt Gen Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces.
However, the protests reveal a shocking contrast between hundreds of thousands of servicemen on the front lines and the corrupt officials who dodge the draft and keep thriving on corruption.
“On one side, there are people spilling blood, and corruption remains high and even gets higher in certain areas, and people find it inadmissible,” Romanenko told Al Jazeera.
Agreement allows the archipelago that endured unrest last year to be its own state but remain within French fold.
France has announced a “historic” deal with New Caledonia in which the South Pacific overseas territory, which was rocked by a wave of unrest last year over controversial electoral reforms, will be declared a new state.
The 13-page accord, reached on Saturday after negotiations in Paris between the French government and groups on both sides of the territory’s independence debate, proposes the creation of a “State of New Caledonia”, with its own nationality, but stops short of the independence sought by many Indigenous Kanaks.
“A State of New Caledonia within the Republic: it’s a bet on trust,” French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X, saying that the time had come for “respect, stability, and… goodwill to build a shared future”.
Under the agreement, New Caledonia would immediately control its foreign policy, but could put the transfer of additional sovereign powers over defence, currency, security and justice to a public vote, potentially paving the way to becoming a member state of the United Nations, according to French newspaper Le Monde.
Unrest broke out in May 2024, after Paris proposed a law allowing thousands of non-Indigenous long-term residents living in the territory to vote in provincial elections, diluting a 1998 accord that restricted these rights.
Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the territory’s population of nearly 300,000, feared the move would leave them in a permanent minority, diluting their influence and crushing their chances of winning independence.
The violence, in which 14 people were killed, is estimated to have cost the territory two billion euros ($2.3bn), shaving 10 percent off its gross domestic product (GDP), according to Manuel Valls, France’s minister for overseas territories.
The accord will help “us get out of the spiral of violence”, said Emmanuel Tjibaou, a Kanak lawmaker who took part in the talks.
Lawmaker Nicolas Metzdorf, who is in favour of remaining in the French fold, said the compromise deal was born of “demanding dialogue”, describing Caledonian nationality as a “real concession”.
Both chambers of France’s parliament are to meet in the fourth quarter of this year to vote on approving the deal, which is then to be submitted to New Caledonians in a referendum in 2026.
Located nearly 17,000km (10,600 miles) from Paris, New Caledonia has been governed from Paris since the 1800s.
Many Indigenous Kanaks still resent France’s power over their islands and want fuller autonomy or independence.
The last independence referendum in New Caledonia was held in 2021.
But it was boycotted by pro-independence groups over the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Kanak population, and the political situation in the archipelago has since been deadlocked.
Valls called Saturday’s deal an “intelligent compromise” that maintains links between France and New Caledonia, but with more sovereignty for the Pacific island.
The deal also calls for an economic and financial recovery pact that would include a renewal of the territory’s nickel processing capabilities.
The 22nd Shangri-La Dialogue, held in late May 2025 in Singapore, continued to clearly reflect the escalating strategic tensions between the United States and China in the Indo-Pacific region. Mutual criticism of freedom of navigation, militarization of the South China Sea, and the “rules-based” international order created an atmosphere of near-confrontation.
In that context, Vietnam—a country with a strategic position and close relations with both the United States and China—has once again attracted the attention of international analysts as a potential model of the “soft balancing” strategy. The question is, can Vietnam continue to maintain an independent and autonomous foreign policy while the great powers are increasingly exerting pressure?
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s speech at Shangri-La Dialogue 2025 reaffirmed America’s “unwavering” commitment to the security of its allies and partners in Asia, with a particular emphasis on “freedom of navigation in the South China Sea” and opposition to “unilateral actions that change the status quo.” Hegseth also announced the expansion of defense cooperation with many Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam.
In turn, China has criticized the United States for using the Shangri-La Dialogue to “create disputes, sow discord, provoke confrontation, and pursue selfish interests,” after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called China a threat in the Indo-Pacific region.
The war of words between the United States and China at Shangri-La 22 not only reflects the stance of the two powers but also an effort to shape the understanding of regional security, leaving countries like Vietnam facing many difficult choices.
Since 2023, when upgrading relations with the US to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” Vietnam has entered a new phase in its policy of “multilateralization and diversification” of international relations. Bilateral trade turnover between Vietnam and the US has exceeded the 124 billion USD mark in 2024, while the US has also actively promoted cooperation in technology, cybersecurity, and maritime patrol support.
However, China remains Vietnam’s largest trading partner, with total two-way trade reaching a peak of over 230 billion USD in 2023. In addition, China is also an important source of input materials in many manufacturing and processing sectors.
Geostrategically, Vietnam is caught between two increasingly clear poles of influence. Leaning too heavily toward one side not only violates Hanoi’s principle of independent and autonomous diplomacy but also carries the risk of being drawn into conflicts that are not its own.
Vietnam’s “four no’s” defense policy—no participation in military alliances; no alliance with one country against another; no allowing foreign countries to set up military bases; No use of force or threat of use of force—continues to be affirmed after Shangri-La.
However, the challenge lies in practical implementation in the context of the US increasing its military presence in the East Sea, while China continues to consolidate artificial outposts and increase its maritime law enforcement forces.
Vietnam has been strengthening its defense capabilities, but it is not seeking a rigid alliance. Its defense procurement from multiple sources (Russia, Israel, South Korea, India, etc.) reflects its desire to maintain a flexible neutrality. In addition, Vietnam prioritizes bilateral and multilateral defense dialogues—including the ADMM+ and the ASEAN Maritime Security Capacity Building Initiative—to maintain regional stability.
For many experts, Vietnam is currently one of the few ASEAN countries with the capacity and courage to maintain a “dual pivot ”strategy”—maintaining warm relations with the US while maintaining stability with China. After the 22nd Shangri-La Dialogue, Vietnam will continue to play an active role in maintaining the stability of the regional power structure. By raising its voice, it will strengthen ASEAN’s central role, from the East Sea issue to building military-security dialogue mechanisms.
However, it cannot be denied that the increasing strategic pressure from both sides may hurt Vietnam’s independent policy space, especially when some countries in the region have begun to lean heavily towards one side; for example, the Philippines has increased military exercises and signed many extensive military agreements with the US.
Vietnam needs to continue moving in the direction of “not choosing sides, but choosing interests.” This means prioritizing substantive projects: energy transition, green technology, improving maritime security capacity, and responding to climate change.
Equally important is to promote bilateral and multilateral dialogue channels to resolve disagreements, especially the East Sea issue. In the context of the Code of Conduct (COC) still not reaching consensus after nearly two decades of negotiations, Vietnam’s proactive mediating role in ASEAN is extremely necessary.
Finally, Vietnam needs to invest more heavily in its domestic “strategic analytical capacity” and foreign policy advisory apparatus to provide flexible, realistic options and respond promptly to strategic movements in the region.
Thus, after the 22nd Shangri-La Dialogue, although no solution to regional security conflicts emerged, it was a clear reminder that US-China competition will continue, even more fiercely. In that environment, Vietnam has no other choice but to uphold the principles of independence, self-reliance, and cooperation while strengthening internal strength, expanding partnerships, and firmly maintaining a principled stance.
It is not an easy road. But as history has shown, Vietnam’s sobriety and steadfastness in the midst of major strategic currents is the foundation for long-term stability and development.