Charges likely identify Zelensky’s chief of staff as organizer of money laundering scheme, media report says

Key developments:

• A person matching the description of Kyrylo Budanov, head of the President's Office, allegedly asked his deputy to launder cash to pay bail for a former minister
• Zelensky associate Timur Mindich allegedly asked the person matching Budanov's description to cooperate in paying Halushchenko's bail
• Mindich also allegedly transferred informal control over Sense Bank to the same person

A person matching the description of Kyrylo Budanov, head of the President's Office, allegedly asked his deputy, Iryna Mudra, to launder cash to pay bail for former Energy and Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko, according to the leaked text of the charges against Mudra published by the media outlet Bihus.info late on Sept. 15.

The official then supervised Mudra's actions in the alleged money laundering scheme uncovered by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), according to the text.

The leaked text does not identify Budanov by name. However, the charges identify the person as an official of the President's Office and Mudra's boss, saying that she was trying to curry favor with that person, Bihus.info reported. Mudra has only one boss at the President's Office — Budanov.

Furthermore, on alleged transcripts of NABU tapes leaked to the media outlet Hromadske in August, there are multiple references to "Kyrylo," "Kyrylo Oleksiyovich," Mudra's unnamed boss, and a top official of the President's Office. There are also direct references to Budanov's last name in the transcripts.

When asked about alleged references to him in the tapes, Budanov told Hromadske on Aug. 27: "Let the court sort it out. You know, (my name) comes up in a lot of places."

The Kyiv Independent has requested comment from the President's Office, Budanov, and Mudra and will publish their responses once they are received. The NABU declined to comment.

In August Mudra, lawmaker Maksym Mykytas, and Viktor Dubovyk, head of the legal policy department at the President's Office, were charged with laundering Hr 150 million ($3.4 million) and transferring the funds through Sense Bank to post bail for Halushchenko.

Halushchenko was charged in February as part of last year’s probe into state nuclear power monopoly Energoatom — the largest corruption investigation of Zelensky’s tenure.

“On June 9, 2026, Mudra received a proposal from an official at the President’s Office of Ukraine to help arrange the laundering of cash that, according to the circumstances of the case, had been obtained through criminal means,” according to the leaked text of the charges. “Specifically, she was asked to arrange for the cash to be converted through the bank accounts of controlled legal entities into legitimate non-cash funds and subsequently transferred to an account of the High Anti-Corruption Court as payment of bail for suspect Halushchenko.”

According to the alleged text of the charges, “being administratively and financially dependent on the President’s Office official and seeking to gain further favor with that person, Mudra agreed to the proposal.”

The text of the charges claims that, between June 1 and June 8, Timur Mindich, the alleged ringleader of the Energoatom scheme, approached “an official of the President’s Office” and “asked for help securing Halushchenko’s release from custody by arranging for bail to be paid into the High Anti-Corruption Court’s Treasury account using funds that would be placed under the official’s control.”

A prosecutor also said at a court hearing on Aug. 25 that "a member of the criminal group" based in Israel — an apparent reference to Mindich — had transferred cash to Mudra to pay Halushchenko's bail.

In June, Mykytas said that Mindich had personally delivered cash for Halushchenko's bail to "Kyrylo Oleksiyovych" — an apparent reference to Budanov, according to the transcripts published by Hromadske.

Those transcripts also have Mudra saying that Sense Bank's management was prepared to follow instructions from "Kyrylo" and to bring the money wherever he says.

Halushchenko's bail was paid through Sense Bank, whose officials were allegedly complicit in the scheme.

On June 10, an official of the President’s Office and Mudra met in Kyiv with Oleksiy Stupak, then CEO of Sense Bank, and Mykola Hladyshchenko, then chairman of the bank’s supervisory board, according to the leaked charges.

“Following the meeting, Stupak and Hladyshchenko agreed to continue operating under the informal control of the President's Office official and Mudra, because their previous overseer, alleged criminal organization leader Timur Mindich, was wanted by the authorities and was therefore no longer fully able to perform that role,” the leaked text says.

In June 2026 Mindich was allegedly looking for political cover for Sense Bank and asked "Kyrylo" — an apparent reference to Budanov — to take over Sense Bank, according to the transcripts of NABU tapes published by Hromadske.

"You can't trust the bank to these crooks, and there are cash flows going through it," Mudra says in the transcripts, recounting what Mindich had told "Kyrylo." "Take the bank under your control."

In a separate fragment from around the same time cited by a lawyer at a court hearing, Mudra says to ex-lawmaker Maksym Mykytas on tape: "Listen, Kyrylo Oleksiyovich" — again an apparent reference to Budanov that uses his patronymic — "called and asked what's going on with Sense Bank."

According to the alleged charges published by Bihus.info, on June 22 “an unidentified man named Pavlo, acting on the instructions and under the supervision of a President’s Office official and Mudra, delivered Hr 50 million in cash to (construction company) Metrobud’s offices in a black Toyota Land Cruiser Prado.”

In a separate scheme investigated as part of the same NABU operation in August, Mudra, Mykytas and lawmaker Vadym Stolar were charged with illegally seizing real estate by hacking the corporate register, forging documents, influencing the Justice Ministry and bribing judges and prosecutors.

According to the leaked text of the charges, Mudra “was also expected, if necessary, to use her influence and close relationship with Deputy Justice Minister Olena Ferens, whose responsibilities included coordinating the work of the Anti-Raiding Office.”

Mudra was supposed to instruct “Ferens on how and when complaints against the actions of state registrars and notaries” should be handled, the text reads.

Mykytas and Mudra also “considered using the threat of dismissal or the publication of compromising information about Ferens in media outlets under their control as a means of pressuring her,” according to the text.

Meanwhile, Ihor Ponochovnyi, head of Justice Ministry’s Anti-Raiding Office, refused to carry out unlawful instructions from Mudra and Mykyrtas, knowing that the relevant documents had been forged, the leaked charges read. As a result, Mudra initiated Ponochonvyni’s dismissal, according to the text.

The Kyiv Independent has requested comment from the Justice Ministry, Sense Bank and Stupak and will publish their responses once they are received.