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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Suspicion against the NABU director was met by the West with surprise. How will the authorities get out of this situation? In the security services — another loud scandal. Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko signed a suspicion against NABU director Semen Kryvonos and left the country. About how the confrontation between the prosecutor's office and anti-corruption bodies developed, who might replace Kravchenko in the position, and how Zelenskiy’s team is thinking to mitigate the scandal’s consequences — read in a RBC-Ukraine material. Main points: Scandalous suspicion: Prosecutor General Kravchenko signed a suspicion against NABU director Kryvonos and left Ukraine, triggering a large political scandal. The Bankovaya reaction: Zelenskiy called Kravchenko’s actions a pure任 self-will, and demanded his rapid dismissal. Risks for the West: The NABU attack occurred at a time when Ukraine is seeking emergency financial aid from partners to cover the budget hole. Personnel deadlock: The authorities are looking for a way to back out of the situation, but there is no real candidate to replace Kravchenko yet, and he himself continues to attack NABU from abroad. When last week RBC-Ukraine discussed the possibility of a government counterstrike against NABU and SAP with one of Zelenskiy’s close allies, he said that such a scenario was not just unlikely, but almost impossible. If only the prosecutor general, like a suicide bomber, decides to detonate the belt of the martyr and pull NABU members along, — said one interlocutor. A few days later it turned out that Ruslan Kravchenko had chosen exactly that role. Read also: Signed a suspicion against the NABU director and left Ukraine: all about the scandal with Prosecutor General Kravchenko. By doing so, he provoked yet another political scandal, already the seventh in a few weeks, and the Western partners’ concern. How the prosecutor general clashed with anti-corruption bodies. In June of 2025 year Kravchenko was appointed Prosecutor General, as RBC-Ukraine sources said, on the proposal of the then head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak. At the same time, Yermak’s deputy and head of all security structures Oleksii Tatarov saw another candidate for the post — Mariya Vdovichenko, who ultimately became deputy head of the General Prosecutor's Office. Then, between Tatarov and Yermak, sources said, tensions rose, so for the head of the OP pushing through his own prosecutor general was a principled issue. Literally a month after the appointment, there was the story with the attack on anti-corruption bodies, which provoked the first cardboard protests and a very harsh reaction from European partners. Ultimately, the situation was quickly rolled back, but Europeans were left with a very unpleasant aftertaste. As well as anti-corruption activists who considered Kravchenko almost the main ideologue of those events. Photo: protest against the liquidation of NABU and SAP (Vitaliy Nosach, RBC-Ukraine). It is noteworthy that over time Kravchenko, according to informed RBC-Ukraine interlocutors in the authorities, began to show increasing independence. And in the critical moment of the Mindichgait scandal, at the end of November, he refused to sign a number of suspicions for participants of the anti-Ermak faction, which ultimately managed to push the all-powerful head of the OP out of his post. Nevertheless, tensions in the relations between the General Prosecutor's Office and anti-corruption structures persisted, with Western diplomats sharing their concerns every 2-3 months that an attack on NABU and SAP could recur. The insiders in the authorities dismissed these concerns each time. In recent weeks anti-corruption bodies have been notably more active, even by their own standards. However, the loud corruption scandal involving former deputy head of the OP Iryna Mudroya passed without visible consequences for them. The bomb exploded when NABU and SAP reached the General Prosecutor's Office itself, carrying out the Carthage operation. And although Kravchenko himself was not handed any suspicions, in the published recordings he clearly figured, though in the third person. How and why the decision was made that the prosecutor general must resign, RBC-Ukraine has already written in detail. Read also: The Fall of Carthage. How corruption and scandals shake Zelenskiy’s government. Autonomy or a planned attack? The main question in the morning in political circles and the diplomatic corps was whether Suspicion against Kryvonos and the near-Climenko person were a result of Kravchenko’s own autocracy or a coordinated attack on NABU and SAP. Numerous RBC-Ukraine sources in the presidential entourage insisted that no one knew about Kravchenko’s actions, and that it was pure self-action without even minutes of the former prosecutor general. He has gone mad, — said one. Others spoke similarly, but more bluntly. This time Zelenskiy himself reacted promptly. This Prosecutor General has only one way: to leave the post, — he wrote in his Telegram channel. A bill to dismiss Kravchenko quickly reached the parliament, which deputies will consider tomorrow, 15 September. Meanwhile Kravchenko himself decided to continue defending himself actively. Apparently taking as an example NABU’s video production, he released a self-produced video with disclosures about Kryvonos. Yet none of RBC-Ukraine’s political circle sources were impressed by Kryvonos’s video. One of them even compared the prosecutor’s video choice to low-budget cooperative cinema 1990-compared to NABU’s real Netflix. Apparently, even Kravchenko’s accompanying text itself — about Kryvonos’s events from many years ago — will not make a strong impression. Legally, the outcome is not yet clear. Who could replace Kravchenko? Obviously, to make everyone believe that Kryvonos’s suspicion is indeed Kravchenko’s solo action and not a coordinated attack, words alone are not enough and must be backed by concrete actions. Especially given that the prosecutor general left the country within hours of signing Kryvonos’s suspicion. RBC-Ukraine has learned that authorities are already looking for ways to roll back the situation before the scandal escalates further. Obviously, this is highly anticipated by the West. Moreover Kravchenko went on the offensive at the most inopportune moment — when Ukraine’s budget suddenly shows a multibillion hole, and Kyiv is asking Western capitals for emergency funding. For the West, the resilience of anti-corruption infrastructure has become a key factor in relations with Ukraine after last summer’s events. How a potential successor could have wriggled out of the situation remains unclear. But there is no certainty and no specific candidate for this post yet. Information that appeared in the media that the head of the General Prosecutor's Office might be Danilo Getmanets was denied by him and various RBC-Ukraine sources. Photo: Semen Kryvonis and Ruslan Kravchenko (x.com). In political circles there had been talk that after Kravchenko’s dismissal the General Prosecutor’s Office would for a time be left without a full-time head, and an acting head could be his deputy Oleksii Khomenko. In the eyes of deputies such a state of affairs carries a pleasant bonus — according to the widespread version, the acting prosecutor general cannot sign suspicions against deputies (though not everyone agrees with such an interpretation). There are also ideas about launching an open competition for the new prosecutor general’s post, as anti-corruption civil society has long demanded. In any case, for now the personnel situation in the General Prosecutor’s Office remains as unclear as the legal prospects of Kryvonos’s suspicion. Kravchenko, apparently, intends to continue his jihad from abroad, releasing new videos against Kryvonos and informing international partners about the real state of affairs in the anti-corruption system, as he wrote in his Telegram channel. In Ukrainian history, influential deputies and top officials, both active and former, have repeatedly gone on similar overseas business trips and not returned. It is not yet known whether Kravchenko will return to Ukraine, but in any case Ukraine’s image and its authorities have taken another painful blow.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Демарш генпрокурора. Чому Кравченко атакував НАБУ і як у Зеленського реагують на скандал". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: RBC-Ukraine.
