In retrospect, it’s much easier to understand why, in July 2025, President Zelensky and his loyal parliamentary faction, the Servant of the People, tried to bring key independent anti-corruption agencies under government control.
Back then, the step prompted the first mass protests against Zelensky in years as thousands of people rallied in Kyiv, Odesa and Lviv.
The move also caused “deep disquiet” among Ukraine’s main international sponsors – especially amidst the quest to prove that the country was governed by the rule of law. European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos was ‘seriously concerned over the vote in the Rada’, adding that “the dismantling of key safeguards protecting NABU’s independence is a serious step back. Independent bodies like NABU and SAPO, are essential for Ukraine’s EU path. Rule of law remains in the very centre of EU accession’.
A slap in the face of those, who tried to prove for years that the stories about corruption in Ukraine were mere Russian propaganda.
At first, Zelensky tried to dismiss the idea that the move would hamper anti-corruption efforts or that the new legislation would have, in any ways, harmed the integrity of the two institutions (both established at the request of the EU, Washington and the International Monetary Fund, about a decade ago). In his views, those two bodies were under Russian influence – to support this claim, Ukraine’s security services had carried out searches and arrests targeting alleged Russian spies at NABU.
Eventually, he backtracked under mounting international pressure. The small intermezzo was almost forgotten amidst daily news on savage Russian attacks against Ukraine’s cities and heroic Ukrainian soldiers defending their homeland. In a similar way as Ukraine’s serious corruption problems were pushed to the background by Moscow’s attack in 2022.
Forgotten, but not gone.
Just before the start of the war, Zelensky’s public rating was at all time low, mainly due to the disappointment people felt about his failure to tackle the country’s all-encompassing corruption. During his election campaign, he’d pledged to reform the judicial system, but that promise was somehow forgotten in the long run. A delay ‘that threatened to derail Ukraine’s aspirations of joining the European Union’. The war solved Zelensky’s problems: corruption became of secondary (or less) importance and Zelensky became the symbol of Ukrainian heroism and the defender of democracy.
At least temporarily. Not even a year later, skeletons started to fall from the closet, again.
Rumours grew of senior officials profiting of the war: a deputy minister suspected of graft here, a corrupt general there.
A few heads rolled (including five regional governors, four deputy ministers and the deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko), thus everybody could pretend that the problem was solved, and Ukraine was still fit to receive billions of euros of Western aid. Government officials loudly boasted about the country’s progress in its anti-corruption campaign, claiming that it was ‘systemic, consecutive work’.
Zelensky emerged from the scandal unscathed, if not more popular than before.
It could go on for another two years, with occasional new revelations about corruption that got swiftly tackled with another few resignations, raids and occasional arrests. For example, the year 2024 started with news about a $262 million worth corruption case connected to military procurement – the exact same way 2023 ended (then a defence ministry official was arrested on suspicions that he ‘embezzled nearly $40 million in the fraudulent purchase of artillery shells’).
The voice of the few observers who tried to point out the superficiality of such steps was lost in the cacophony of jubilant cries.
Dynasty of Scandals
In July 2025, news surfaced that both NABU and SAPO were conducting investigations that involved high-ranking officials and those close to the president, like former investment banker and Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov or a relative of Zelensky’s business partner Timur Mindich, called Leonid. The officials and businessmen under investigation denied all wrongdoing, the Rada quickly passed a bill curbing the independence of the agencies – just to be forced to take the above detailed U-turn.
Chernyshov was charged with bribery and abuse of power in a ‘large-scale’ corruption scheme ‘led by a property developer from Kyiv who illegally claimed a plot to build a residential complex’, his reward for which was a significant discount for an apartment (or maybe as many as seven apartments) in said complex. He fled the country merely days before NABU and SAPO detained his close associates. A coincidence, what else.
After pressure grew on Zelensky again, Chernyshov returned to the country and reported at the NABU’s headquarters, where he had a ‘constructive conversation’ with the agency’s detectives (he was released on bail on July 2). Though he insisted on staying in office at first, but eventually resigned from his post. Leonid Mindich (cousin of film producer and co-owner of Zelensky’s Kvartal 95 production company, Timur Mindich, more of him later) was accused of embezzling $16 million from the electric power company Kharkivoblenergo.
Operation Midas
In an almost natural sequence of events, a new, even bigger scandal rocked Kyiv in November 2025.
This time, the kickback scheme is centred around the nuclear company Energoatom and is said to have caused about $100 million dollar damage to the war-torn country – with recurring names on the accused’s list.
One of them is Oleksii Chernyshov (again), charged with illicit enrichment (allegedly having received about $1.2 million).
According to the available information, he used the money embezzled from Energoatom to finance a high-end construction project in Kyiv’s cozy suburb, Kozyn. Subtly dubbed ‘Dynasty’, the project covers an 8.2 acre plot on the banks of the Dnipro river, with 12 houses (each over a 1000 square meters), while its costs are estimated at tens of millions of dollars. It was supposedly meant to provide housing to Chernyshov, Timur Mindich and other senior Ukrainian officials, including President Zelensky himself.
To add insult to injury, the project wasn’t put on hold after Russia’s invasion.
Another name linked to the scandal is businessman Oleksand Tsukerman, one of the alleged masterminds besides Timur Mindich. Tsukerman was the main coordinator of the payments between those involved, including Ihor Myroniuk, a former advisor to former Energy –, more recently Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko. According to the documents disclosed by NABU, the money – received from contractors of Energoatom who were forced to pay to avoid payment blocks or the loss of supplier status – was laundered through an office in Kyiv, linked to a former member of parliament Andrii Derkach.
To add another layer of intrigue, Derkach is currently a senator in Russia. The investigation (codenamed ‘Midas’ after the ancient Greek myth) conducted by NABU and SAPO (based on dozens of searches and about 1000 hours of wiretapped calls during a period of 15 months) reveals a complex system of payments, along with scheming worthy for a spy novel.
Some information suggests that President Zelensky himself is audible on one of the recordings.
Possibly to avoid detection, the conspirators referred to themselves by code names during the conversations: Chernyshov was called Che Guevara, while Ihor Myroniuk was the “Rocket”. Herman Halushchenko had the code name ‘Professor’ – probably a not-so-subtle hint (homage?) at the popular Spanish series, Money Heist.
In an apparent effort of high-level damage control, Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko and current Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk, though both denied any wrongdoing, have submitted their resignations on November 12. (Hyrnchuk is linked to the case both as minister of energy and via Ihor Myroniuk, who is said to have conducted a job interview for her when she was considered for the position of energy minister.)
Another suspect, Timur Mindich (code named ‘Karlson’) fled the country hours before the start of the raids. In his home, investigators found ‘cupboards loaded with bagfuls of €200 bills and a solid gold toilet’.
Unverified reports claim both he and the Tsukerman brothers are currently in Israel. As Zelensky has issued a series of sanctions against them (their Ukrainian passport was revoked and their assets were blocked, among others), it’s unlikely that they’ll return to the country any time soon.
Even less so, as in the freshly published presidential decree both are listed as Israeli citizens (and Tel Aviv never extradites its citizens).
The real irony is in the details.
Chernyshov and Mindich are both considered very close allies to anti-corruption warrior President Zelensky.
According to investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov, Chernyshov was the only minister invited to Zelensky’s birthday party during the coronavirus pandemic, while Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska is the godmother of Chernyshov’s child. As for Mindich, Zelensky has reportedly used his armoured car during his 2019 presidential campaign. Then, the above-mentioned birthday party was held in Mindich’s apartment. As Zelensky’s power grew, so did Mindich’s business empire. In no time, he gained the nickname ‘Zelensky’s wallet’.
Another murky detail links Mindich directly to Russia: though he got married in Israel in 2010, his wife is Ekateryna Verber, the daughter of deceased Russian retail executive Alla Verber. Via her, another close Zelensky-aide, head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak is also linked to Mindich, further tightening the web of corruption. (In the last couple of days, pressure grew on Zelensky to sack Yermak before he gets officially accused with corruption, too. This far, his involvement was neither confirmed, nor denied by NABU.)
In times when Kyiv faces a massive budget shortfall and Zelensky is fighting tooth and nail to convince Western donors that Ukraine is not simply a country-sized laundromat for a few select oligarchs, the optics are not good.
Add to this that the scandal hit the country’s shattered energy sector – at a time when many Ukrainians don’t have electricity in their homes, or suffer blackouts caused by Russian bombing.
And the investigation isn’t limited to the energy sector. Unconfirmed reports claim that NABU’s investigation has been extended to Fire Point, a leading drone manufacturer, as its co-owner is tied to Mindich’s wife’s luxury boutiques. The company has been already under investigation over concerns of its pricing and delivery policies, but now prosecutors try to establish how deep its links to Mindich run. Another ongoing investigation targets Rustem Umerov, the former minister of defence and current secretary of Ukraine’s State Security and Defence Council.
The prosecutors are eager to see, what role Mindich played (if he did, at all) in the ministry almost-buying Chinese bulletproof vests for highly inflated prices.
Ukrainian people are not blind.
They understand that their leaders lost all moral compass at one point: according to the public survey “Omnibus”, the vast majority of them (71 percent) believe that the level of corruption in the country has increased, while 20 percent believe that it remained on the pre-war level.
That means that 91 percent of Ukrainians think that their government is corrupt. (5 percent said it decreased and 4 percent had difficulties assessing.)
Many (especially young men) question why they should fight (and die) for a country while officials engage in corruption and focus only on lining their own pockets.
Some say that the ‘Midas’ investigation was the NABU’s revenge project (or warning) for the planned restrictions against its authority. Others explicitly claimed that they have an ongoing smear campaign against them, supposedly instigated by Russia itself – an interesting idea given that if anything, NABU has been closely cooperating with the FBI since 2016 (having reinforced their cooperation with a Memorandum of Understanding signed on August 31, 2023).
A new FBI agent has just recently arrived at Kyiv and the two agencies cooperate closely on ‘Operation Midas’, too. Though, for a few years to come, the public and the experts will likely make one guess after the other about who and why decided to spill the beans in this particular case, the underlying pattern of corruption is hard to deny. Especially not in the energy and defence sectors, where most of the foreign support goes. After NABU announced the case, Zelensky called for ‘maximum transparency in the energy sector’ – but corruption on this levels brings into question his dedication to anti-corruption reforms.
The more so, as most of the scandals unearthed lead somehow back to President Zelensky and his inner circles, who all seem to profit about the ongoing war. The president himself might not be directly linked to any such case (yet), but where there’s smoke, there’s fire, as they say.