Suspicion against NABU Director Kryvonos as a Farewell: Is Kravchenko Acting Lawfully and What Will Be the Political Consequences?

During the night of 14 September, the still-serving Attorney General Ruslan Krawchenko left the country, and in the morning he released a video address about signing a suspicion against the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Semyon Kryvonos, and an unnamed trusted person of the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.

The NABU stated that Kryvonos has not been formally served with the suspicion. The President urged the Verkhovna Rada to dismiss the attorney general urgently. The vote was scheduled for 15 September.

LB.ua asked lawmakers-lawyers and attorneys whether the signature of Krawchenko on the suspicion, signed just before his resignation and departure on a business trip, is legal, who can hand such a suspicion, and whether the confrontation between the Office of the Prosecutor General and anti-corruption bodies could culminate in another round of a ‘cardboard Maidan.’

What happened and what preceded it

At the beginning of September, NABU and SAP announced that they were investigating the actions of a criminal organization connected with shielding a network of fraudulent call centers. The operation codename was “Carthage.” The investigation linked the uncovered scheme to the Deputy Head of the Office of International Cooperation of the Office of the Prosecutor General, Serhiy Kropiva, and his partner Elizaveta Ivakhnko. They were charged and jailed: Kropiva — with an alternative bond of 120 million hryvnias, Ivakhnko — 20 million.

Operation 'Carthage'

During an off-the-record conversation with journalists, Krawchenko assured that he did not intend to resign, and that all assumptions that the Carthage tapes contain mentions of him were unfounded. However, as LB.ua sources reported, after a conversation with President Volodymyr Zelensky, the attorney general submitted his resignation. The relevant Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement unanimously supported the president’s submission for Krawchenko’s dismissal. The vote was to take place on 15 September.

But in the night of 14 September, Krawchenko left the country. Journalists’ information indicates that the reason was a business trip to France. And already around 8 in the morning, the Office of the General Prosecutor published a video address by Krawchenko. He reminded that a few days earlier he had submitted his resignation after NABU and SAP notified about the Carthage operation and searches, and stressed that this is a conscious political decision, not an admission of guilt or the result of any deal.

“The Carthage operation was aimed not only against me. The true goal was to gain access to materials of criminal proceedings concerning the heads and employees of NABU and SAP. And after that, to remove the attorney general and halt the adoption of procedural decisions in these cases,” said Krawchenko.

Attorney General Ruslan Krawchenko

According to him, during the searches at the Office of the Attorney General, NABU and SAP staff gained access to legally protected materials of proceedings concerning their own leaders and employees, and some documents and electronic data were copied and stole.

“As of today the Office of the General Prosecutor conducts procedural supervision in dozens of criminal proceedings investigating serious and especially serious crimes committed by NABU and SAP staff. Over a hundred people have been questioned, a substantial amount of material from covert investigative actions has been collected,” the head of the OGP said.

On the first suspicion, the attorney general said: “Relying on the collected evidentiary base, I signed a suspicion against the director of NABU, Semyon Kryvonos. I suspect him of forging official documents to obtain undue benefit in a particularly large amount and fictitious adoption to artificially create grounds to avoid liability in court. I am confident in these materials and can disclose them.”

The second suspicion, Krawchenko continued, concerns a “person close to the SAP head” — for influence on judges of the High Anti-Corruption Court, offering them undue benefits and aiding evasion of mobilization.

He added that previously his “political restraint” was due to the president and anti-corruption figures who allegedly offered guarantees of impunity in exchange for declining the suspicion. “Behind every word of mine are facts and evidence collected long before the Carthage operation, whose sole aim was to stop me as a direct political opponent, as a person who could hinder the election of a desired new SAP head,” said Ruslan Krawchenko.

The attorney general advised Kryvonos and SAP head Oleksandr Klymenko to resign. Later he announced that he had left for a foreign business trip: “I am currently on a foreign business trip, during which a number of meetings are planned in which I intend to inform international partners about the real state of affairs in the anti-corruption system, signs of concentration of uncontrolled influence by them, and risks such practices pose to state sovereignty, the rule of law, and democratic institutions of Ukraine.” He did not specify whom he intends to inform. It is evident that he sent himself on the trip.

NABU’s reaction to Krawchenko’s statement was seen as a continuation of a systemic attack on independent anti-corruption bodies. “This attack did not begin today. Its active phase began last summer when one of the main goals was to subordinate NABU and SAP to the Office of the General Prosecutor,” the agency noted.

Semyon Kryvonos

According to NABU as of 09:00, no suspicion against director Semyon Kryvonos has been officially served. “NABU has not and did not seize any criminal proceedings about which the attorney general’s statements refer. All statements about allegedly seizing such proceedings are not true,” the bureau said. They emphasize that the statements by Krawchenko are public rather than procedural in nature: “Moreover, NABU and SAP never offered or demanded any ‘immunity’ for anyone.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky harshly reacted to Krawchenko’s appeal. “This attorney general has only one path: dismissal from the position. That is exactly what I told him. Ukraine has seen all the reasons. If he views this as political pressure, let it be so. I urge parliament to support this dismissal urgently,” the head of state stated.

The vote on the dismissal will take place on 15 September, said the head of the Servant of the People faction, Dmytro Arakhamiya. And LB.ua sources say that there will be votes in favor of Krawchenko’s dismissal in the Rada.

Dmytro Arakhamiya

So far there are no candidates for the position of attorney general to replace Krawchenko. “But it doesn’t matter who it will be. Regardless of surname, it will be a person chosen by the president. Until the appointment, one of the deputies will perform duties,” said one influential Servant member on Sunday.

Another deputy added that “all rumors about a candidate for the post of attorney general being the current SAP head Oleksandr Klymenko or the head of the Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy Danilo Getmanets are exotic. There is no candidate yet. Before leaving, Krawchenko will appoint someone from among the deputies to perform duties.”

Another source, connected to state leadership, predicted: “Considering that Krawchenko’s first deputy Maria Vdovichenko has resigned, most likely Alexei Khomenko will perform duties until a full-time Attorney General is appointed, who after the resignation of Andriy Kostin in October 2024 year already performed duties of the attorney general.”

Another source close to the state leadership rejected the possibility of Getmanets being appointed. As for Khomenko, it is possible that he will be acting attorney general until a new one is appointed, but the president will not nominate him for the post, the source said. “They are looking now. There may be a big surprise,” LB.ua said.

What lawmakers-lawyers say: is the suspicion valid in a business trip?

Serhiy Vlasenko, a member of the Batkivshchyna faction and the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy, emphasizes: a notice of resignation does not deprive Kryvonos of powers until the Rada votes, so the signature on the suspicion remains valid. “That is, he remains the competent attorney general,” the deputy told LB.ua.

Serhiy Vlasenko

In his view there is no legal collision in the situation with the suspicion: “It is signed by a sitting attorney general. It is a working, normal document. He could have signed it while standing on the Verkhovna Rada dais before the vote. If the Rada votes for dismissal tomorrow, the suspicion remains valid.”

Regarding the circumstances of the attorney general’s departure abroad, the deputy noted that the fact of being on a business trip during the signing of the suspicion is not confirmed. And the Center for Combating Corruption’s claim that only the president could authorize the attorney general’s trip to a business trip, Vlasenko called those statements inaccurate. “I want to remind that according to the Constitution, the attorney general is not subordinate to and not accountable to the president. Therefore political nonsense should be kept to themselves. The president has neither any nor possible relation to this,” the deputy said.

Commenting on NABU and SAP searches in the seats of the OGP leadership, Vlasenko said the goal of these actions was obvious from the start. “For anyone who understands at least something, it was obvious that when NABU and SAP entered the office of the attorney general and the first deputy, there were no grounds to enter that office, except to obtain access to certain materials. And Krawchenko said today that they went there to obtain access to materials of proceedings against NABU and SAP personnel themselves. There was no legal procedural necessity for this,” he said.

At the same time, the deputy believes the attorney general did not think through the public aspect of the conflict. “It seems to me that Krawchenko completely lost the media component. If he had, the same day after the cabinet raid, appeared before the public and calmly explained to people why they came to him, that there were no personal issues, and that the only aim was to gain access to case materials, the situation would have been somewhat different,” Vlasenko noted.

Two questions remain open: “Will the successor of Krawchenko oversee the investigation? And how will all this play out in the long term? A suspicion notice sometimes breaks not immediately, but later.”

Serhiy Demchenko

Serhiy Demchenko, a deputy from the Servant of the People and a member of the Legal Policy Committee, agreed that the suspicion is valid and emphasized the inadmissibility of political assessments of law enforcement actions. “Everything must be by the law. If we begin to politically assess, we influence law enforcement bodies, and that is, in my opinion, beyond the law,” the deputy told LB.ua. He added: “We must create all conditions for them to respond as quickly and objectively as possible in accordance with the law. And that is what I expect from all of them.”

On the legal side of the situation, Demchenko said: “The suspicion was signed at a time when the attorney general had authority, and it is not canceled by dismissal. There are no legal grounds to cancel the suspicion, so if it exists, it will stand.”

Procedurally, he said, the announcement and handing of the suspicion must coincide: “These are actions that must coincide in time. That is, the suspicion is announced by handing the notice.” At the same time, commenting on NABU’s statement about not handing the suspicion, Demchenko noted: “There are different procedural methods of handing the suspicion. They are stated directly in the Criminal Procedural Code. Therefore, handing the suspicion personally is not the only lawful method,” the deputy said.

What lawyers say: the signature is there, suspects are not yet

Yuriy Bauman, partner at the law firm Bauman Kondratyuk, commented to LB.ua that he agrees with the deputies on the legality of the signature but notes that both suspicions have not yet become procedural facts.

Lawyer Yuriy Bauman

“Kravchenko had the right to sign the suspicion. Both covering letters to the suspicions are dated 12 September — a day before the border crossing at 2: 30. So they were signed on Saturday, in Ukraine. There is no collision,” the attorney said.

He notes the ethical aspect: “A person whose Office is under NABU investigation, in the last days, is beating the head of the agency that is investigating him. But such ethics are not codified in the CPC.”

Bauman highlights the key problem with how the suspicion was attempted to be conveyed to Kryvonos. “Signing the attorney general’s signature on the suspicion is not yet the suspicion. A person becomes a suspect from the moment the suspicion is delivered (Articles 42, 276–279 of the CPC). The whole country knows where Kryvonos is located, so the only way is to hand it personally. Instead, the suspicion was sent to the NABU chancery “for transmission to Kryvonos S.Y.” — that is, offering the director of NABU to organize handing the suspicion to himself. Kryvonos, as head of the institution, could of course issue a resolution “until execution,” but is unlikely to do so,” he said.

The lawyer explains: “The Supreme Court already in 2019 explained that only an authorized person can sign a suspicion against a special subject, and to hand it on his behalf — a investigator or a prosecutor from the group. The employer of the suspect is not among them. The signature is there, the suspect is not. From signing the suspicion to its delivery — like submitting a resignation to a presidential decree: one step, and you can go a long way.”

According to him, Krawchenko’s resignation will not cancel the suspicion, but will shift the decision to his successor. “The suspicion does not disappear; firing the prosecutor does not cancel his procedural decisions. But an unhanded suspicion is a piece of paper waiting for someone to take it. It must be delivered either by the new attorney general (acting) or by a prosecutor acting on his instruction. In other words, Krawchenko left the successor with not a suspicion, but a choice: you will hand it — continue the attack; you will not hand it — cover it. This is not a procedural document, it is a suitcase with a handle, signed on the way out,” the attorney said.

The second suspicion — to the unnamed trusted person of the SAP head — Bauman regards as more interesting. “Proceedings from 3 September 2025 year, classification — part 4 article 190 and part 1 article 114-1 of the Criminal Code, suspicion on 9 pages, recipient — ‘trusted person of the SAP head.’ The attorney general publicly described this as ‘influence on the judges of the VACs, offering undue benefit, aiding evasion of mobilization.’ It sounds formidable. But looking at the qualification: Article 190 — this is fraud. Not article 369-2 “abuse of influence,” not article 369 “offering undue benefit,” but fraud,” the attorney says.

From this qualification, he argues, follows the judges’ own interpretation: “Fraud ‘for influence on judges’ legally means there was no influence: someone took money, promising to ‘resolve the matter in the VACs,’ and did not resolve it. Thus, even the Office of the Prosecutor General, with this qualification, states that VAC judges did not influence anything. For VACs, this is perhaps the best characterization a court has received from the prosecutor’s office in the last year.”

Commenting on possible covert investigative actions, Bauman explained: “For especially serious crimes (part 4 article 190) covert actions are allowed, and a year from the registration of the proceeding one could complete a full cycle. Listening to the ‘trusted person of the SAP head’ — that means listening to the SAP head himself. Listening to VAC judges directly is a separate matter: under article 49 of the law ‘On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges,’ this is possible only with a motion by the attorney general or his deputy, and under article 247 of the CPC — with the permission of a judge of the appellate court, outside the investigative body’s jurisdiction.” Thus, “if recordings of VAC judges’ conversations exist, the motion for them bears the signature of either Krawchenko himself or his deputy.”

Evaluating whether the suspicions have substantial grounds, Bauman enumerated four signs: “First: a suspicion for ‘influence on judges’ on 9 pages is either very confident or very brief. Second: the qualification does not match the public narrative, which usually means the narrative was scripted for the microphone, while the qualification was for the investigating judge. Third: Krawchenko’s statement ‘I can disclose materials’ — a beautiful phrase, but the materials of the investigation before declassification are state secrets, and whoever discloses them risks becoming the target of the next suspicion, again not ‘for transmission.’ And most importantly: neither suspicion has been delivered. Two suspicions signed on Saturday before Krawchenko’s departure and no suspect on Monday — this is not a criminal process yet, but an announcement.”

“The simple conclusion is this. By the letter of the law, Krawchenko’s signature is legal; delivery is not, and the consequences depend on who sits in the chair at Rizniyska after 15 September. The criminal case does not begin with a video address; it begins with a receipt for delivery. No such receipt has been shown yet,” Bauman summed up.

Attorney Olena Hadzhuk, managing partner of Hadzhuk & Partners, confirmed to LB.ua that Krawchenko had the right to sign the suspicion against the NABU director, but said this is not sufficient.

Olena Hadzhuk, lawyer, PhD, managing partner HADZHUK&PARTNERS

“The law grants the right to inform about a suspicion of a director or another NABU employee exclusively to the attorney general (or acting on his duties) or the head of SAP. So Ruslan Krawchenko had a formal right to make such a procedural decision. However, to give a definitive answer on whether there was any legal violation requires details of the case not currently available in the public space, such as whether Ruslan Krawchenko was part of the group of prosecutors conducting procedural supervision in this criminal case, because the mere holding of the office of attorney general does not automatically confer the right to inform about a suspicion in all cases,” she explains.

The attorney separately notes that “the notice of suspicion against Semyon Kryvonos is not connected with his work as director of NABU, but concerns events from more than a decade ago.”

Hadzhuk, like other lawyers, focuses on the delivery. “A notice of suspicion is the moment when a person becomes liable to criminal responsibility. However, drafting and signing such a document does not equal informing the person of the suspicion: the key is the delivery procedure. The law requires handing the written notice of suspicion on the day it is drafted by the investigator or prosecutor. The CPC allows sending such a document to the person’s residence or workplace (which indeed happened in this case), but only if personal delivery is impossible,” the lawyer says. If the delivery procedure was breached, the notice can be canceled.

Hadzhuk believes that “the notice of suspicion against the NABU head looks like a political decision that Ruslan Krawchenko will use as a trump to obtain concessions from officials of other states, while at the same time it will land on the desk of the future attorney general as a Gordian knot that will either add points at the start of a career or drag him down. But in any case, a public show of holding the head of a leading anti-corruption body to account is certainly not in Ukraine’s interest.”

Political consequences: damage to the state's image, protests unlikely

Oleksandr Merezhko (Servant of the People), head of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Interparliamentary Cooperation, also sees this as a blow to the state's reputation.

Oleksandr Merezhko

“This is simply not normal when law enforcement agencies start fighting among themselves during wartime. First the SBU and GUR, now the prosecutor’s office against NABU. First, it undermines the unity of state power; second, it sends a bad signal to our partners. It seems someone is trying to take revenge or weaken NABU, which enjoys public support and trust from Western partners,” he said. He added that he understands the negative consequences this could have for Ukraine’s reputation abroad.

In his view, both the president and parliament should respond. Merezhko also suggests changing the method of appointing the attorney general: “We need to decide on a new attorney general as soon as possible. Perhaps consider holding a competition to prevent such scandals in the future. Or a temporary appointment of the Attorney General until a competition is held. During wartime it is important not to have a vacuum and for the post to be held by someone trusted by the president, the Rada, and society.”

Fedoris Vinislavskyi (Servant of the People), a member of the National Security, Defense and Intelligence Committee, does not rule out a deepening political crisis: “Unfortunately, the risks are significant. How the situation will develop depends on the president’s and parliament’s upcoming decisions.”

Oleksandr Danutsa

Oleksandr Danutsa (Servant of the People), member of the Committee on Law Enforcement, on questions about a possible new wave of street protests said he did not expect it. “I do not think this will lead to more cardboard protests. I am sure that tomorrow they will dismiss the attorney general, and the suspicion he voiced is not a real suspicion if it is not delivered,” he said in an online committee meeting.

According to him, in the current situation there will be no one to deliver the suspicions: “I doubt that prosecutors can be found who would catch Kryvonos or the SAP person and deliver the suspicion. And without delivery there is no proper status.”

Yaroslav Yurishynyn (Voice), head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, called Krawchenko a “fugitive attorney general.” “And this is not a confrontation between the OGP and NABU, but a criminal case,” he said. It concerns Article 364 of the Criminal Code — abuse of power.

Yaroslav Yurchynyn, head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech

His assessment is derived from the attorney general’s statements: “Krawchenko himself said that the president hindered him from doing this earlier. He also mentioned anti-corruption bodies and some guarantees. That is, in his words, he did it to take revenge for NABU’s actions. So did he have the right to sign the suspicion? Yes. Was he impartial? He said no. In my view, this is abuse.” The “Voice” faction will push for the open competition bill No. 15343 for the post of attorney general.

A source in LB.ua close to state leadership says Krawchenko put the head of state in an extremely awkward position by telling that Zelensky allegedly pressured him to block cases against NABU and SAP. At the same time, it effectively admitted he subjected to this pressure and allegedly concealed interference in the prosecutor’s work. The source suggests that after this Krawchenko is unlikely to return to Ukraine.