70% verdict on the Ryznytska system: how the prosecutors’ “Carthages” buried Ukrainians’ trust

If the Office of the Prosecutor General still devoutly believes that blue uniforms inspire public respect and awe, then fresh sociology should serve as an ice-cold shower for Ryznytska. Seventy percent of citizens directly and without qualification said they do not trust the prosecution, and more than half saw nothing in the attorney general except a compliant relay of orders from above. Yet instead of reforming the system with a transparent competition involving international experts, they replaced the Paris fugitive Ruslan Kravchenko with another “convenient” figure—cementing the crisis in its best traditions.

A new nationwide sociological study conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation together with the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), commissioned by the public organization Center for Combating Corruption, recorded an extremely alarming picture. The survey covered 1050 respondents aged 18 and older in all regions of Ukraine free from active hostilities during the period from 21 August to 10 September 2026. The results confirm: the gulf between society and the prosecutorial system has reached a critical depth.

An absolute majority of Ukrainians—70% of respondents—stated that they categorically or rather do not trust the prosecutor’s office. Only 26% of respondents expressed some level of optimism about this agency, while 4% could not decide. Thus, the distrust indicator is practically three times higher than positive evaluations. Notably, extremely low trust persists regardless of social status, though skepticism is noticeably higher among citizens with higher education: among them the level of complete or partial distrust reaches 75% versus 72% in the group with secondary education.

These figures gain particular piquancy from the timing of the survey. The field stage of the research took place when the then-attorney general Ruslan Kravchenko still formally held office and had not yet set off on his scandalous trip to France in a government vehicle. Public details of the NABU and SAP special operation codenamed “Carthage” were only seeping into the media in the final days of the field interviews.

This means the devastating attitude toward the prosecution that was recorded did not arise from the sudden emotional shock of the final events but was a natural consequence of years of observed imitation of legality.

The shadow of “Carthage”

The roots of citizens’ total distrust become obvious if one looks at the scale of schemes uncovered by anti-corruption agencies. On 4 September, NABU detectives and SAP prosecutors carried out searches at the main building of the Office of the Prosecutor General on Ryznytska Street and directly at Ruslan Kravchenko’s country house. The main target of the investigation was Deputy Head of the Department of International Cooperation of the OPG Serhii Kropyva—the closest trusted associate of the office head with whom he maintained close informal contacts.

Investigators accused officials of creating a criminal organization that put systemized “protection” of a network of fraudulent call centers into operation. According to investigators, for multi-thousand bribes the officials ensured the inviolability of selected underground offices that siphoned funds from Ukrainians and foreign citizens while simultaneously harassing their market competitors with inspections. The laundering of dirty money occurred through purchases of elite Kyiv real estate and the registration of ownership shares in the names of drivers, common-law wives, and relatives of the officials themselves.

But the real moral blow to society were the published wiretaps of conversations between Kropyva and Kravchenko, details of which were released by Suspilne. The audio recordings captured that the subordinate literally acted as the personal secretary and sponsor of his boss’s household: booking luxury apartments abroad for the attorney general’s trips, paying for tables at expensive restaurants, personally handling equipment purchases and arranging U.S. visas for Kravchenko’s wife, and even overseeing construction crews doing renovations on his estate.

The attorney general initially tried to extinguish the fire by dismissing Kropyva and publicly denying involvement. However, after a meeting on Bankova on 7 September, the official was forced to submit his resignation. Then, on the morning of 14 September, he went all in: he recorded a video announcing suspicions against NABU director Semen Kryvonos, after which he hastily crossed the western border under the cover of a sham trip to PACE. Subordinates at Ryznytska revoked his suspicions by evening, calling the leader’s stunt “legally meaningless,” but the blow to the state was colossal.

Why Ukrainians didn’t believe in the independence of the head of the OPG

A separate section of the sociologists’ study concerned the personal assessment of Ruslan Kravchenko himself while he still sat in the Ryznytska office. More than half of Ukrainians—51% of respondents—unequivocally stated that they do not consider the attorney general an independent figure. Only 16% of respondents saw signs of an autonomous leader in him, while a third (32%) hesitated, and 1% refused to comment. Among those who took a position, negative evaluations dominate by a staggering margin.

Perceptions of the attorney general’s dependence turned out to be directly linked to settlement type and citizens’ level of awareness. The highest level of skepticism was recorded in large cities: among residents of Kyiv and regional centers only 17% believed in the independence of the head of the OPG, while 83% called him dependent on political will or external influences. In district centers and small towns the share of those who do not believe in the leader’s independence is 74%, and even in villages and settlements this figure exceeds 68%.

A similar correlation is observed with education level. Citizens with higher education proved the most uncompromising: 83% of them explicitly called the attorney general a controlled figure (only 17% expressed trust in his independence). Among people with secondary education these figures are 71% and 30% respectively. This shows that the intellectual and urban core of Ukrainian society has long ceased to perceive the head of the prosecution as an independent arbiter of justice, seeing him rather as a conduit for the behind-the-scenes politics of Bankova.

The crossover with the overall level of trust in the agency is also telling. Among citizens who do not trust the prosecutor’s office, 87% are convinced the attorney general acts on instructions from above. Meanwhile, even among the few who generally express sympathy for the prosecution, opinions about the independence of its top official are split almost in half: 54% consider him independent, and 46% see him as dependent. This fact underscores that the crisis of trust in the office of the attorney general is systemic and long ago outgrew the bounds of particular surnames.

An international competition as the only way out

Against the backdrop of deep disappointment with traditional methods of forming the law-enforcement bloc, the study recorded a massive public demand to change the selection procedure itself. When sociologists asked respondents how introducing an open competition for the attorney general’s post with mandatory participation of independent international experts would affect their attitude, the majority favored a radical change in the rules of the game.

According to the data, 56% of respondents said that if the attorney general were chosen in an open competition with international experts, they would begin to trust that official more. Only 4% said such a step would reduce their trust. For 34% procedural innovations would not change their overall perception, and 6% could not decide. Identical results apply to trust in the prosecutorial system as a whole: 53% of Ukrainians would be more willing to trust the agency if the prosecutor corps were formed through independent filters, and only 6% are opposed.

As the publication Censor.NET emphasizes, this public consensus clearly correlates with the position of key public organizations and international partners. The executive director of the Center for Combating Corruption, Darya Kalenyuk, has repeatedly stressed that attempts to keep manual control over the attorney general’s office close the door to systemic change. In her words, if Bankova continues to appoint comfortable executors to Ryznytska instead of adopting a law on an open competition modeled on NABU and SAP, the country will simply get successive “Kravchenkos” with new surnames.

For roughly a third of citizens, changing the formal procedure alone does not look like a magic bullet, because society is tired of declarative slogans and demands real convictions for corrupt officials. Still, the presence of more than 55% of citizens who directly link the restoration of trust in justice with the participation of international experts sends an unequivocal signal to parliament: the era of behind-the-scenes deals under the dome of the Verkhovna Rada has exhausted its limit.

Why the appointment of Anton Kovalsky is conservation of the crisis

However, hopes that the authorities would heed sociological warnings and signals from Western donors were dashed by the reality of the first personnel decisions after Kravchenko’s flight. Instead of promptly supporting the bill registered in parliament on an open selection or handing candidate vetting to the sitting Ethics Council, the president appointed Anton Kovalsky—the head of the Khmelnytskyi regional prosecutor’s office—as acting attorney general.

As commentator Inna Vedernikova detailed in ZN.UA, Kovalsky’s appointment became yet another choice in favor of comfort over reform. According to investigators, the candidacy of the new interim head of the OPG was lobbied to Bankova by shadow businessman Illia Pavliuk with the assistance of Deputy Head of the President’s Office Oleh Tatarov. Kovalsky is called a protégé of former deputy attorney general Ihor Mustetsa—a figure Ruslan Ryaboshapka once flatly refused to see in the agency’s leadership because of his ties to control over customs and contraband flows.

This personnel logic demonstrates a dangerous trend: the authorities are panicked about losing their monopoly on making procedural decisions regarding “their own.” In this construction the post of attorney general is seen exclusively as a shield against unexpected visits from NABU detectives and as a barrier to the initiation of proceedings regarding members of the parliamentary majority. As a result, instead of cleansing Ryznytska, a new leader appeared whose ties to informal patrons only deepen the sense of mutual protectionism.

At the same time Ukraine pays too high a price on the international stage for such conservation. As the Reuters news agency emphasizes, public wars between the Office of the Prosecutor General and anti-corruption structures, and the refusal to hold open competitions, put tens of billions of dollars in Western macro-financial assistance directly at risk and block negotiations on European Union integration.

Ukrainian society, according to the sociological data, has already made a clear choice in favor of transparency. Now it is up to the political leadership: either break the back of the behind-the-scenes system through an honest competition, or finally lose the trust of their own citizens at the most difficult moment in history.

Author: Sviatoslav Hrynko