Zoya Kazanzhi: Institutional Exhaustion of the State

By his decree, Zelensky suspended Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko without waiting for a decision from the Verkhovna Rada.

Formally this is not yet a dismissal: during martial law the law gives the president the right to such a suspension, and the prosecutor general can only be finally dismissed with the parliament’s consent.

But the problem has long been more than the formal legality of an individual decree.

The problem is that the state increasingly operates in a mode of personnel manual control. People are appointed without clear criteria, then just as suddenly reassigned, suspended, or dismissed. And almost never is it explained to the public why a person who was the best yesterday has become unsuitable today.

Ruslan Kravchenko is already the fourth prosecutor general appointed during Zelensky’s presidency. Before him there were Ruslan Ryaboshapka, Iryna Venediktova, and Andriy Kostin. Ryaboshapka disappeared from public service after his dismissal. The next two prosecutors general the president sent as ambassadors: Venediktova to Switzerland, and Kostin went to the Netherlands.

This already looks like a separate personnel tradition in Ukraine: first a person heads one of the key law enforcement institutions, then leaves without a convincing public report, and later receives a diplomatic post. No accountability for results, no explanation of mistakes. Just the next square in the personnel solitaire.

Now another telling detail. On the night of 14 September, Kravchenko crossed the border in an official vehicle. Separately, two days earlier, his wife left via a different route. The official explanation was a 5-day business trip to France. On paper, he is supposed to return. Whether he will return—we’ll see.

But this whole story—the nighttime departure of the head of the prosecution in an official car in the midst of a loud conflict, the separate departure of his wife, the suspension by decree after crossing the border—is catastrophic for trust in the state.

Since the start of the full-scale war, Ukraine has already had its fifth defense minister. Since July 2025 it has been the fourth! Ministers change, heads of security agencies fight among themselves, state institutions publicly hash things out, and the parliament increasingly resembles not a center of political responsibility but a notary office beside Bankova Street.

The personnel elevator at Bankova works oddly: up—without competition, down—without explanations, and after resignation—into diplomacy and law practice.

For a parliamentary-presidential republic this is not just bad personnel policy. This is institutional exhaustion of the state.

It is especially dangerous now, with a difficult winter ahead, the economy hanging on the edge of its capacity, and Russia waging a war of annihilation against us. At such a time the state needs not endless personnel carousels but clear rules, professionalism, continuity, and personal accountability.

What should we, the citizens, do? Because that question always arises after stating the facts.

Do not get used to it. Do not accept the exceptional state as the normal order of things. Demand public criteria for appointments, explanations for dismissals, and reports on results.

Because the state does not rest on surnames—it rests on rules. And if the rules are rewritten every time for some new surname, one day we may find that we are defending a country where institutions exist only on the signs.

Zoya Kazanzhi, journalist, public figure, writer; author’s page on Facebook

"Argument"

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