From sitting deputies to senior OP officials: 7 of NABU’s most high-profile special operations

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office shocked the public with the results of another special operation called “Forrest Gump.” The investigation established that, outside state monitoring, 150 million hryvnias of illegally sourced funds were laundered through controlled companies and the state-owned Sens Bank. The money was intended as bail for a figure in another high-profile case—the media name former energy minister Herman Halushchenko.

In the context of “Forrest Gump,” the following persons are implicated: Deputy Head of the OP Iryna Mudra, former and current MPs Maksym Mykytas and Vadym Stolar, Justice Ministry official Olena Ferens—altogether 13 people connected to state structures or their service. The investigation is closely linked to investigative actions in the “Midas” case—the most notorious corruption scheme that has been “unwound” since last year. And this is not the first scandal to arise from the detectives’ work.

Korrespondentka Korotko pro collected 7 of NABU’s most high-profile special operations.

1. “The Amber Case”

This is not the official name but a popular nickname for a special operation that began in the spring of 2016 and gained wide publicity in the summer of 2017. Its uniqueness was that suspicions of corruption crimes were served on sitting MPs—Boryslav Rozenblat and Maksym Polyakov—and their immunity was stripped afterward.

The case’s literary twist fueled interest: a beautiful and crafty agent Kateryna ingratiates herself with the parliamentarians posing as a representative of the Arab company Fujairah, charms and bribes them to amend laws on amber extraction and export. The total bribe in the case exceeded 300 000 US dollars. For the first time in criminal chronicles, the role of undercover agents in corruption cases was openly declassified.

The SAP indictment was drawn up in the fall of 2018, and the case was sent to the Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv. At that stage it stalled and still has no resolution. The former deputies’ lawyers did an excellent job—hearings were disrupted and postponed due to absences and other reasons.

According to the media, Boryslav Rozenblat is currently in Germany, where he owns real estate. Maksym Polyakov is known to have been implicated in another corruption case in which he signed a plea agreement and received a suspended sentence.

2. Record bribe

This special operation became a highlight in the long-running case against Mykola Zlochevsky—the former ecology minister in Azarov’s government and owner of gas extraction company Burisma. The ex-official was accused of facilitating the illegal allocation of a National Bank stabilization loan to Real Bank, which was controlled by Yanukovych’s people.

While Zlochevsky hid from investigators abroad, his trusted associates began negotiations with NABU and SAP in early summer 2020 about buying the criminal proceeding. They planned to complete the deal by 14 June— the ex-minister’s birthday. Negotiations were held between NABU’s non-staff agent Yevhen Shevchenko and Kyiv’s first deputy head of the fiscal service Mykola Ilyashenko. At first, 2 million dollars were offered to close the case, then it reached 5 million. Ilyashenko also bargained an extra million from the principals for mediation. All of this was recorded on tape with a court’s authorization for covert investigative actions.

The bribe handover took place on 12 June. SAP head Nazar Kholodnytsky falsified information about the case’s closure; three bags of dollars were brought into a special room of the city tax office. A criminal proceeding for attempting to bribe an official was opened, and the tax official and two other negotiation participants were detained.

They drew a line under the record-bribe case in August 2023. Zlochevsky signed a plea agreement with investigators, paid 68 thousand hryvnias in fines, and transferred 660 million to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Years earlier, other defendants in the case had signed plea agreements.

3. “Golden Eggs”

In April 2025 NABU and SAP officially announced the uncovering of a large-scale scheme to embezzle funds in the procurement of food for the Armed Forces. This followed a scandal that erupted in January 2023 after a publication in Dzerkalo Tyzhnia. A journalist found that the Defense Ministry had purchased eggs for feeding soldiers at 17 hryvnias each—three times the price of the product in the rear.

Then Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tried to present the incident as a mistake, but two years later it was proven true. NABU exposed a scheme where prices for popular foods were inflated while less popular items were undervalued. Thus the price of the “comprehensive service” provided by suppliers appeared moderate.

The suspicions served by NABU stated embezzlement of over 733 million hryvnias and attempted theft of another 788 million. The case is now in the High Anti-Corruption Court. Experts call it high-profile but not very successful. Businesswoman Tetiana Hlyniiana, considered the scheme’s organizer, is hiding abroad; from the Defense Ministry there is only one former official implicated, while the circle of those in the know was clearly larger.

4. “Clean City”

Following the results of the “golden eggs” investigation, in early February 2025 NABU announced the start of a special operation officially named “Clean City”—aimed at stopping criminal schemes in Kyiv’s land and budget spheres. In brief, the schemes involved transferring valuable land plots into private ownership under the guise of servicing primitive structures (colloquially called “toilets”), which were then used for development.

The main organizer of the scheme was named as former Kyiv City Council deputy Denys Komarnytskyi. He was charged and quickly fled abroad with the assistance of off-staff SBU operatives and police officers in the Zakarpattia region.

According to the investigation materials, Komarnytskyi’s accomplices included former and current KCSA officials, city deputies, and heads of communal enterprises. As a result, they prevented the withdrawal from communal ownership of two land plots worth over 81 million hryvnias and over 19,5 million.

5. The highest judge

In May 2025, the detention of Supreme Court Chairman Vsevolod Knyazev made headlines. Not because he was caught taking a bribe—people simply could not believe that the highest representative of the judiciary could be implicated.

Knyazev was suspected of, with his consent and the participation of other judges, ensuring that the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court would rule in favor of oligarch Kostiantyn Zhevago in a case concerning the sale-purchase agreement for shares of the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant. The matter involved 2,7 million US dollars, which were transferred through a lawyer connected to the Supreme Court’s administrative office. Over 1,1 million US dollars were found directly in the main defendant’s office.

At trial, the former judge tried to prove the money was planted on him and offered other versions, but ultimately he reached a plea deal and named colleagues with whom he shared the money. In June 2026 the defendant was sentenced to 5 years in prison; his apartment and a house in Mykolaiv were confiscated, along with personal savings in various currencies. Voluntarily, Knyazev transferred 1 104 600 US dollars to support the Armed Forces.

6. From “Midas” to “Forrest Gump”

In November 2025 the country learned that NABU operatives had conducted the active phase of the “Midas” special operation for over 15 months. It concerned money laundering and other criminal schemes at Energoatom. As a result of covert investigative actions, detectives conducted over 70 searches, seizing millions of dollars, and collected 1000 hours of audio recordings of the scheme’s participants. From this comes the infamous phrase “dvushechka na Moskvu” (“a two-hundred for Moscow”), which became a symbol of the lack of principles in Ukrainian corruption.

A separate office with “black accounting” operated to legalize laundered funds. The premises, investigators say, belonged to the family of former MP and now Russian senator Andrii Derkach.

The scandalous resonance of this case was dubbed “Mindichgate” after the scheme’s organizer Tymur Mindich—a well-known businessman and co-founder of the Kvartal-95 studio. In the scheme he had the nickname “Karlson,” and other participants also used code names and played different roles. For example, through “Roketa” (former advisor to ex-energy minister Herman Halushchenko—Ihor Mironyuk), the criminal organization received over 112 million dollars in cash. “Tenor” (Energoatom’s security executive director Dmytro Basov) legalized over 30 million hryvnias by purchasing two luxury cars and elite real estate in Ukraine and Bali.

The investigation continues and keeps generating new scandals. Tymur Mindich is hiding abroad (Israel is named); in February 2026 former minister Halushchenko attempted to flee but was detained by NABU detectives and placed under arrest. At the end of June he was released on bail of 150 million hryvnias. Those are the same funds that appear in the “Forrest Gump” operation.

For the public, “Midas” was a harsh shock; many “white” and “gray” spots remain in the case.

7. “Dynasty” and the Yermak case

Following the trail of “Midas” led to new exposures. On 11 May 2026, NABU and SAP notified former Head of the Office of the President Andrii Yermak of suspicion. He is also suspected of being involved in a group that laundered criminally obtained funds. The money was invested in building the elite cottage community “Dynasty” in the village of Kozyn near Kyiv. According to the investigation, from 2021 to 2025 years over 460 million hryvnias were laundered there. The financing was carried out, among other sources, through schemes practiced at Energoatom.

On 12 May NABU notified six more participants in the construction scheme of suspicion. Among them is former Vice Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov, who had previously been suspected of abuses in the Ministry of Regional Development. According to the media, after the “Forrest Gump” results were announced, Yermak may be served a second suspicion as well.

An interesting question

Who comes up with special operation names

“Midas” is an evil and greedy king who first turned everything to gold and then walked around with donkey ears. “Forrest Gump” is a simple and sincere character from a novel and film, whose phrase is heard on tapes from one of the suspects’ mouths. People wonder who creates such names for special operations.

“Based on my practice, and I don’t think anything has fundamentally changed, in 90 percent of cases the name is invented by the person who is ‘lowest’ and starts the case. For example, an operative who organizes covert investigative actions,” former SBU officer Ivan Stupak told Korotko pro. “If the managers don’t object, it stays; if the boss doesn’t like the name, they look for another option or he suggests his own.”

However, a special operation’s name isn’t for effect. It’s a code created for secrecy.

“Suppose you’re conducting an important investigation. The boss calls and asks, ‘What’s going on with the National Bank?’ It’s immediately clear who your interest touches, and outsiders might overhear. It’s a different matter when the boss asks how ‘Fly’ is progressing,” Ivan Stupak illustrates.

If not “Fly,” then “Bee” or “Kotygoroshko”—it depends on imagination. An important condition is that the operation’s name must not create direct associations with its content. If it’s a financial fraud investigation, there can’t even be a hint of money. And the same goes for other directions.