Update: Prosecutor General's Office says charges brought by its disgraced leader have no legal grounds

Key developments:

• Outgoing Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said he approved charges against Semen Kryvonos, director of Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), and a person close to Oleksandr Klymenko, head of Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO).
• Anti-graft agencies denied the allegations, calling them retaliation for a recent investigation. Kryvonos says he wasn't formally charged.
• Kravchenko left Ukraine for what he called a business trip to a PACE event in Paris about Ukrainian children. Organizers said they didn't expect him to attend.
• President Volodymyr Zelensky suspended Kravchenko and urged parliament to approve his resignation.
• Prosecutor General's Office says that the charges against Kryvonos have no legal grounds

The Prosecutor General's Office said late on Sept. 14 that the charges against a top anti-corruption official announced by disgraced Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko "have no legal grounds."

National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) chief Semen Kryvonos denied on Sept. 14 that he had been formally charged, hours after Kravchenko said he had approved charges against him.

Kryvonos said at a press briefing that he had not seen any charges against him and had not been formally served with them. He called Kravchenko's accusations fabricated.

Under Ukrainian law, charges must be formally served on a suspect to become legally valid.

"In response to reports that one of the heads of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies had allegedly been served with a notice of suspicion, we would like to clarify that this information is false," the Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement. "No one in this criminal case, including the head of an anti-corruption agency, has been formally charged in accordance with the procedure established by Ukraine’s Criminal Procedure Code."

The Prosecutor General's Office also said that "there are no legal grounds for doing so," and that "(Kravchenko's) statements on the charges had no legal meaning."

The prosecutor's office said that entries on the charges in the register of pre-trial investigations had been canceled.

The dispute comes amid a growing confrontation between Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies and the Prosecutor General's Office, which is facing an NABU investigation into an alleged criminal group that protected scam call centers and helped launder millions of hryvnias.

NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) said Kravchenko's announcement was part of a broader attack on the independence of the anti-corruption agencies.

Earlier, on Sept. 14, President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree suspending Kravchenko from office and submitted a motion to parliament to fire him. Lawmakers are set to vote on his dismissal on Sept. 15.

"I suspect (Kryvonos) of falsifying official documents in order to obtain especially large illicit benefit," Kravchenko said, publishing materials of the alleged charges.

He also claims to have approved charges against a person close to Oleksandr Klymenko, head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), without naming them. Klymenko said that none of his family members had been formally charged.

The statement comes days after Kravchenko resigned on Sept. 7 following a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Kravchenko denied involvement in the call center scheme, allegedly involving a senior Prosecutor General's Office official, Serhii Kropyva.

Kravchenko said the alleged goal of the latest operation by anti-corruption agencies was to "gain access to materials on the agencies' heads and staff," remove the prosecutor general and halt the related investigations.

One of the charges against Semen Kryvonos concerns allegedly falsified paternity documents used by the NABU chief in court to avoid punishment in a 2007 bribery case. Back then, Kryvonos stood accused of vote buying in a local election.

Kryvonos is also accused of agreeing to illegally allocate a land plot in exchange for a $72,000 bribe in 2014. The scheme was uncovered before it was completed, according to the Prosecutor General's Office.

"NABU and SAPO view these actions as a continuation of the systematic attack on the independence of anti-corruption agencies," the bureau said.

The NABU investigation has also raised questions about Kravchenko's alleged ties to the group.

The bureau's recordings refer to a "boss" allegedly protecting the group, a figure whose patronymic, Andriiovych, and prior role as head of the State Tax Service correspond to Kravchenko.

An earlier Telegram post by the Prosecutor General's Office confirms that the investigators understand the term "boss" as referring to Kravchenko.

An anti-corruption prosecutor also described Kropyva as a confidant of Kravchenko during court hearings.

According to NABU recordings, Kropyva arranged repair work at Kravchenko's house in Kozyn, an elite residential area south of Kyiv. Kravchenko said he had chosen the house last winter and had been living there since May.

Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing sources, that Kravchenko left Ukraine in a government car at 2:30 a.m. local time on Sept. 14. Kravchenko later claimed he was headed abroad on a business trip to brief partners on the "real state of affairs" in Ukraine's anti-corruption system and "signs of uncontrolled influence" within the agencies.

A source in the President's Office told the Kyiv Independent that Kravchenko signed off on his own travel order.

The document dated Sept. 13 and seen by the Kyiv Independent says Kravchenko was due to travel to Paris for a PACE parliamentary network hearing on "Ukrainian children in the context of international responsibility." His business trip was scheduled to begin on Sept. 13 and last five days.

The Prosecutor General's Office initially said it knew nothing about Kravchenko's trip, but later confirmed he was due to travel to Paris.

"Neither Ukraine's Prosecutor General - nor any member of his office - will take part in this meeting," a PACE spokesperson told the Kyiv Independent.

Last July, Kravchenko, long seen as a staunch loyalist of Zelensky, took part in Zelensky's team's failed attempt to destroy the independence of NABU and SAPO, which sparked nationwide protests.

Kravchenko now claims that Zelensky had previously sought to prevent him from approving the charges against the NABU chief. The Prosecutor General called on Kryvonos and Klymenko to resign.

After Kravchenko's statement, Zelensky called on parliament to back his dismissal as prosecutor general.

"This prosecutor general has only one path: dismissal from office. That is exactly what I told him," Zelensky said on social media. "Ukraine has seen all the reasons. If he considers this political pressure, then let him call it that."