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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Corruption cases from the past year no longer look like a set of unrelated episodes. Energy, the Office of the President, the prosecutor’s office, the Supreme Court, defense procurement, parliament, and fraud call centers are increasingly appearing in a single information chain.
The latest developments in these cases are covered by Expert.
In recent weeks this chain has received several new extensions. In the Carthage case, VAC sTopped preventive measures for several defendants, and Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, after the public disclosure, announced his resignation. Parallel, the case on the origin of 150 million UAH of bail for former energy minister Herman Galushchenko continues, with NABU calling it operation “Forrest Gump.”
This is exactly what the Expert editorial team has gathered in one large special project, “Carthage.” Its main distinction from a regular chronology is the ability to see side by side cases that usually exist in the news feed separately from one another.
One of them is the Midas operation. NABU is investigating a likely large-scale corruption scheme in the energy sector in which suppliers to Energoatom, according to the investigation, could be faced with a demand to pay back part of the contract value in order to receive payment. In August, NABU director Semyon Kryvonos spoke of a “serious substantial progress” in this case.
A separate piece, “Barrier,” shows the mechanics of this story through the very principle of how a supplier interacts with a state enterprise: goods have already been delivered, acts signed, and the question of payment becomes a tool of pressure.
From this case grows the next plot — Herman Galushchenko. At the end of June, a bail of 150 million UAH was set for the former minister. According to UNIAN, the money came from several legal entities. By August, NABU and SAP announced a separate operation “Forrest Gump”: investigators are checking how funds could have been laundered for this bail through accounts of affiliated companies and a state bank.
This story in the special project is dedicated to two materials: “Taken off the train” and “Forrest Gump.”
Another plot, literally within a few days, became one of the main political events of September. NABU and SAP announced the exposure of an organization whose members are suspected of systematically receiving money from fraudulent call centers. Serhiy Kroppivy was remanded in custody with an alternative bail of 120 million UAH, Yelizaveta Ivakhnenko with 20 million UAH, and several other defendants were also given preventive measures.
Against this backdrop, Ruslan Kravchenko initially said he saw no reason to voluntarily resign, but later that same day announced he had filed the appropriate statement. As of 9 September, UNIAN wrote that the document had not yet been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada.
The full history of this proceeding is collected in the material “Carthage.” Next to it, the editors separately studied the very market of fraudulent call centers in the material “Office.”
The scale of the problem became especially noticeable in August. Police, SBU, and prosecutors conducted 411 searches and halted the activities of 94 fraudulent offices. Law enforcement authorities reported over 100 million hryvnias in losses identified for victims from Ukraine, the EU, and Central Asia.
Another part of “Carthage” concerns state funds during the war. At the end of August, the Accounting Chamber published results of an audit of procurement and development of armaments for 2024–2025 years. Of 614 billion hryvnias in procurements, more than 90%, or almost 580 billion hryvnias, went to procedures without competition. Auditors also found discrepancies with legislation totaling almost 350 billion hryvnias, but these sums cannot automatically be equated with embezzlement or losses.
This is dedicated to the material “War as Business.”
Another layer is the judiciary. In summer, VACCs approved a deal with the former head of the Supreme Court, Vyacheslav Knyazev. He pleaded guilty, received five years’ imprisonment with confiscation of property, and later anti-corruption bodies announced suspicions against several more Supreme Court judges.
The story of the money marked on banknotes and the Grand Chamber can be read separately — “The Grand Chamber.”
The topic of declarations also continued. NABU suspects former ambassador and deputy prime minister Olha Stefanishyna of illegal enrichment by more than 13,9 million UAH and false declaration. In August, VACCs set her bail at 6 million UAH, later paid by a law firm. Stefanishyna denies the grounds for the suspicion.
In the special project, this case is analyzed in the material “Appointed for a friend.”
Another story concerns payments under the “green tariff” for solar plants on the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region. NABU estimates potential losses at 141,3 million UAH. Among the suspects is Rostyslav Shurma, former deputy head of the Office of the President; he stated that he is not in hiding and is ready to cooperate with the investigation.
More details — “Green Tariff.”
The final part of the special project is not about a single sum or one surname, but about the anti-corruption system itself. The Center for Human Rights ZMINA studied 29 cases of possible pressure on anti-corruption officials in 2025–2026 years. In 28 cases criminal proceedings were opened; overall there were 30; none of the episodes with so-called Russian trace had resulted in a conviction by the time of the study. These are the authors’ conclusions, not a court finding of illegality of the proceedings themselves.
This line is continued by the material “Year Without Verdicts.”
As a result, the special project “Carthage” consists not of one “main case,” but of twelve stories in which different institutions are involved, different procedural statuses of people, and different degrees of proven charges. That is why each material individually notes where it is a version of the investigation, where there is a verdict, and where the case is only beginning.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Від «Мідаса» до «Карфагена»: 12 корупційних історій, які змінили Україну". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Expert.
