Our readers' questions about Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies, answered
Editor's note: We offered members of the Kyiv Independent community to share their questions about a controversial bill that undermined Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions and the street protests that followed it this week. Our staff's answers to their questions are below. Join our community and get the chance to ask your questions directly to our team.
What is NABU? And besides NABU, there is NAZK, SAPO, and VAKS — what are they and why were they created?
Confused by all the acronyms in the news about Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies right now? Let’s break it down. To understand what they mean, you’ve got to go back to 2014 and the EuroMaidan Revolution, which ousted the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych and kickstarted a number of pro-Western reforms.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) was formed in 2015 as a specific agency to investigate and prosecute top officials suspected of corruption.
NABU's cases are overseen and prosecuted by the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), which was also created in 2015, and subsequently tried by the High Anti-Corruption Court (also known by its Ukrainian acronym VAKS), created in 2018 to prosecute these high-profile corruption cases.
This specific structure allowed SAPO and NABU to pursue powerful people without political interference, since they were created to be procedurally independent from the prosecutor general (who is nominated by the president). Moreover, the leadership of NABU and SAPO is selected by independent commissions, free from the direct influence of the president.
The controversy surrounding the new law stemmed from its provision that places NABU (and SAPO) under the authority of the prosecutor general. This change grants the prosecutor general — who is nominated by the president and approved by parliament — direct oversight of anti-corruption prosecutors. Ukraine’s current prosecutor general, Ruslan Kravchenko, is widely seen as loyal to President Volodymyr Zelensky, raising concerns that the law could allow the president himself to indirectly influence or halt investigations by NABU.
Launching NABU and anti-corruption agencies was one of the requirements set by the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund for the relaxation of visa rules between the EU and Ukraine, loosened in June 2017. Since 2017, the EU has provided technical assistance to NABU and related anti-corruption programs through the European Union Anti-Corruption Initiative in Ukraine (time to learn a new acronym: EUACI).
There’s also the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP or NAZK as it's known in Ukrainian), another post-EuroMaidan body. This agency’s role is to monitor discrepancies between officials' standard of living and their asset declarations (compulsory asset declarations for officials were another post-EuroMaidan reform). The agency can flag irregularities, which may be due to potential illicit revenue sources and other violations. The role of the NACP is therefore to prevent corruption from taking root or escalating.
Essentially, these four bodies — NABU, SAPO, VAKS, and NACP — were four crucial anti-corruption pillars created after EuroMaidan, designed to curb and prosecute high-level corruption, regardless of who is in power.
(Answered by Elsa Court, audience development manager)
To what extent did the work of NABU significantly reduce the level of corruption in Ukraine?
There are different opinions on how much NABU's work has reduced the level of corruption.
Compared to other law enforcement agencies (the Prosecutor General's Office, the police, the Security Service of Ukraine), NABU's results have been more notable. Before NABU's creation, mostly petty officials faced prosecution. In contrast, the NABU has regularly charged incumbent top officials.
At the same time, the NABU has been accused by some critics of sometimes being willing to compromise with the authorities. It has also been accused of being reluctant to go after the most high-profile members of the president's inner circle.
Another problem is that there have been few convictions in the most high-profile NABU cases. This partially stems from dysfunctional courts, not NABU.
(Answered by Oleg Sukhov, a reporter covering corruption and anti-corruption institutions since 2014)
How was it ensured that these bodies were independent?
NABU investigates top-level corruption, and its cases are overseen and prosecuted by SAPO. When it was created, the chief of SAPO was procedurally independent from the prosecutor general and the prosecutor general did not have the authority to take away cases falling within NABU's jurisdiction from the bureau.
The idea was that, without political interference, NABU and SAPO would be free to go after powerful incumbents.
The new law was criticized precisely because it subordinates NABU and SAPO to the Prosecutor General — a political position nominated by the president.
(Answered by Oleg Sukhov, a reporter covering corruption and anti-corruption institutions since 2014)
How is a law in Ukraine supposed to be proposed, discussed, and voted on? And why was the way this law was passed contrary to how it's usually done?
In Ukraine, for a bill to become law, the following procedure is required: Once a bill is registered, it must be endorsed by the speaker and submitted to the relevant parliamentary committee. If the committee approves it then it is passed to the floor for the first reading.
If the bill gains at least 226 votes out of 450, it passes the first reading. At this point, lawmakers have the right to propose amendments. After the amendments are proposed, the bill returns to the committee, which then gives its assessment on the proposed amendments.
After the committee’s assessment, the bill returns to the floor for a final vote. If the bill is supported by parliament it must be signed by the speaker and sent to the president for his signature.
The president has 30 days to either sign it and make it law, or veto the bill.
The process by which the law undermining the independence of anti-corruption institutions was adopted differed from the standard procedure.
Back in January, lawmakers submitted a bill called “On the Peculiarities of Pre-Trial Investigation of Criminal Offenses Related to the Disappearance of Missing Persons in Special Circumstances Under Martial Law.”
As is clear from the name, it had nothing to do with anti-corruption institutions.
The law passed the first reading and was sitting there, waiting for amendments.
Suddenly, on July 22, a controversial lawmaker from the president’s party proposed amendments that strip anti-corruption agencies of their institutions. The amendments were immediately sent to the committee, where they were hastily approved and sent to parliament for a second reading — all in one day.
Most lawmakers who have spoken with the Kyiv Independent said that they didn’t even have time to read it and make up their mind.
The time from amendments being proposed, to committee reviewing, parliament voting and speaker and then president signing was approximately 12 hours. It was unprecedented.
(Answered by Oleksiy Sorokin, deputy chief editor)
To what extent has corruption in the defense industry had an effect on the war effort?
It's a complicated question, and I can't put a dollar amount on it. The most common issue is one more than familiar to Western defense ministries as well, which is the granting of contracts to companies with close personal ties to the government or military leadership. That’s happening more frequently than outright theft of weaponry, as far as I can tell. But it raises costs, sometimes enormously, which is a particularly acute issue given how limited Ukraine’s finances are, and I think it’s a serious barrier to military success and development.
(Answered by Kollen Post, defense industry reporter)
Is it true that Shabunin signed up for military service but never really served with his unit?
In a recent interview with the Kyiv Independent, Vitaliy Shabunin shared his side of the story regarding the accusations that he never “really served” and unlawfully received military pay while working with the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NACP).
Shabunin explained that just before the start of the full-scale invasion, together with friends, he set up a civilian defense headquarters in Kyiv, operating out of a basement bomb shelter and a district hospital. When the war broke out, he officially joined the Territorial Defense Forces in Kyiv and has been serving ever since.
At some point, the NACP — one of Ukraine’s main anti-corruption agencies — formally asked for Shabunin’s help. They requested his commander to assign him to assist with anti-corruption efforts, including drafting and pushing through a law to confiscate Russian assets. The law passed, but there was still a lot of work to be done: legal, policy-related, and public communication.
His commander reviewed the request, issued the necessary orders, and Shabunin followed them — just like any soldier would. During his assignment at the NACP, he stayed on military payroll as expected; the NACP didn’t pay him separately.
Now, the accusation is that he didn’t actually do any work during those five months and therefore shouldn’t have received the roughly $4,500 in salary in total. Shabunin denies he "didn't do any work," has shared plenty of details about his work with the agency, and brought a copy of the letter from the head of NACP, where he asks Shabunin’s commander to detach him to go to the agency.
(Answered by Liliane Bivings, business editor)
How can we be sure that there is no Russian influence in these institutions?
Russian influence is everywhere. There were Russian agents in the Security Service of Ukraine, in Zelensky’s own staff, and it’s possible there were some in the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Yet, the Security Service that conducted the crackdown presented no evidence that the bureau was infiltrated by Russian agents.
The law which was passed also doesn’t address the issue of Russian influence in any way. There is simply no clause that “solves” the issue used as a justification to curtail the independence of those institutions.
Unfortunately, “the fight against Russian influence” is often used to back an unpopular decision to give them at least some credit.
For a more in-depth answer read our story on this issue.
(Answered by Oleksiy Sorokin, deputy chief editor)
