Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The head of the SAP claims that Andriy Yermak insisted on not restoring the bureau’s powers.
The head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Oleksandr Klymenko, said that preparations for last year’s attack on NABU and the SAP began long before the summer 2025, back in the fall of 2024. According to him, after the law that limited the independence of these bodies was adopted, the Security Service of Ukraine continuously pressured the anti-corruption structures. This became one of its main lines of work, Klymenko said in an interview with the program “There Are Questions.”
Asked whether he considers Andriy Yermak the chief architect of the attack on NABU and the SAP, Klymenko replied that decisions were made collectively. It happened at meetings where some people were more active and others less so.
Klymenko says there is a recorded conversation during which Yermak, while on a business trip in Turkey, called his deputy. He insisted that “you can’t rewind the law,” even when the president had already effectively decided to do so. According to Klymenko, Yermak suggested creating an expert group with the involvement of international specialists. In his view, this would have allowed them to drag out the process and reduce the intensity of the protests without returning NABU’s powers.
Klymenko thanked the people who took to the streets to protest the decision to subordinate the anti-corruption bodies. He emphasized that without this, there would have been no independent institution left in the country that is not subordinate to political power.
According to Klymenko, after the law was adopted, government representatives tried to convince international partners that the situation was not so clear-cut. They claimed that the anti-corruption bodies were allegedly politicized and had many shortcomings. In response, they proposed creating working groups and involving international experts for review. In Klymenko’s view, this was actually an attempt to buy time, not to reverse the adopted decision.
Answering why the decision was ultimately revoked, Klymenko said he does not consider it a result of the authorities’ fear. He said that by that time a number of people soberly assessed the situation and communicated to the president that the decision was a mistake and needed to be acknowledged. Among those who influenced this, Klymenko named Fedorov.
Klymenko also said that many participants in last year’s attack on NABU and the SAP became subjects of criminal cases themselves over the past year and received suspicion notices. According to him, among the public participants in the attack who later came under investigation, the only one he can recall is Yuliia Tymoshenko.
Klymenko noted that a former first deputy director of NABU was also involved in preparing the attack. He helped with advice and documents. The head of the SAP clarified that this refers to the only official of that level.
Over the past year investigators and prosecutors reconstructed the entire mechanism for preparing the attack. In particular, they established that the so-called urgent searches were prepared in advance and that evidence for them was falsified.
Klymenko said that these materials are not being made public but are being used in the investigation. He added that there are many such episodes and new ones are registered weekly.
According to the head of the SAP, the greatest opposition to the anti-corruption bodies has been mounted by the Security Service of Ukraine. Some of those involved in preparing the attack, Klymenko said, “played dead” and kept a low profile, understanding what consequences a failed attempt could have.
In July 2025 the Verkhovna Rada adopted law No. 12414, which limited the independence of NABU and the SAP. This sparked protests in Kyiv and other cities already on the day of the vote. The actions continued for more than a week, and their participants demanded that the authorities restore the anti-corruption bodies’ independence.
After NABU’s and the SAP’s powers were restored, Klymenko said that the events surrounding the law severely damaged the work of the anti-corruption system. For more details about the attempt to deprive NABU and the SAP of independence and the pressure on the anti-corruption bodies, see the article “Head of the SAP Oleksandr Klymenko: ‘The staff do not understand why their colleagues are detained when no real evidence of breaking the law was presented’” by ZN.UA’s domestic politics editor Inna Vedernikova.
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