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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office presented a report for the first half of 2026 year. Behind the facade of the reported figures are 55 convictions, with four high-ranking officials, judges, and prosecutors among the convicted; the briefing left more questions about the effectiveness of the agencies themselves than answers.
The main acknowledgment came from the head of SAPO himself. According to Oleksandr Klymenko, the problems the agencies mention “every six months” are not being solved for years, and this indicates that corruption in Ukraine is not decreasing: it remains at the same level, and top-level corruption is even growing. The statement is telling: the anti-corruption vertical has existed for decades, its budgets and staff have grown, yet, according to the agency’s own leadership, there is no systemic result for the country. Responsibility for this is traditionally attributed by NABU and SAPO to “the lack of political will by the state”— the question of their own effectiveness at the briefing did not come up.
High-profile cases are stalling. The criminal case against former Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Verbytsky has been ongoing for three years—and during this time no one has been charged. The leadership’s answer boiled down to the fact that “the stage of gathering evidence is ongoing,” and the case may be closed. In the Lazarenko case, with which Ukraine has linked hopes for recovering substantial sums from the United States for decades, there is no progress—Klymenko admitted that the sides “are at the same point,” despite the prosecutor general’s repeated trip to Washington.
The “Midas” case: a year of investigation—and no victim. In the high-profile case, where, according to the investigation, more than 100 million were washed through Energoatom, the company itself still does not have the status of a victim party. When asked directly to compare these losses with the company’s record profit, the agency replied that these are “incomparable indicators,” and dodged further details, citing secrecy of the investigation.
There are more acquittals than the national average. This was acknowledged directly at the briefing. Two explanations were offered: changes in legislation and in Supreme Court practice, through which evidence is deemed inadmissible, and the fact that some acquittals in VAKS concern cases of other agencies—in particular the National Police. The errors of their own detectives and prosecutors were listed only as a theoretical possibility.
Timing of the suspicion for Stefanishyna. Journalists asked twice why the suspicion was handed to the former vice prime minister after she left the post of ambassador. The answer was strictly procedural: suspicion is handed out “when there is enough material.” At the same time, in court, the prosecutor appealed to her possible influence on the selection commissions for heads of agencies—but as it turned out, this influence is not the subject of the investigation: the argument was used to justify a preventive measure without verifying it within the case.
Tone of conversation with critics. Uncomfortable questions at the briefing were accompanied by a characteristic rhetoric: critics of the agencies were called participants in “dirty information campaigns,” mentioning “Telegram washrooms” and some members of parliament. The question about the agreement with the investigation in the “Mindichgate” remained unanswered, the number of proceedings regarding MPs’ illicit enrichment was not disclosed, and the formula “we don’t talk about everything and we don’t publish everything” rang out from the body that demands transparency from everyone else.
A substantial portion of the briefing was devoted to the conflict with the SBU—wiretapping, surveillance, pressure on judges—and to the list of legislative changes they expect from the parliament. The question of what NABU and SAPO themselves could do differently so that corruption, in their own assessment, finally begins to decline did not arise at the briefing.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Резонансні провадження роками лишаються без оголошення підозр, а корупція на найвищому рівні посилюється: про що свідчить звіт НАБУ та САП". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Rozsliduvach.
