Anticorruption agencies arrest four suspects after government forced to backtrack on push to strip them of autonomy.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian authorities have detained several officials over a \u201clarge-scale corruption scheme\u201d in the defence sector, just days after lawmakers restored the independence of the country\u2019s two main investigative bodies.<\/p>\n
The National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor\u2019s Office (SAP) said in a joint statement on Saturday that they made four arrests in connection with the scheme, which involved the procurement of military drones and signal jamming systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe essence of the scheme was to conclude state contracts with supplier companies at deliberately inflated prices,\u201d they said, adding that the suspects had received kickbacks of up to 30 percent of the contract amounts.<\/p>\n
NABU and SAPO said they had caught a sitting lawmaker, two local officials and an unspecified number of National Guard personnel taking bribes. The suspects were not identified in Saturday\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Internal Affairs also said it had suspended the suspected National Guard members.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came under criticism last month for trying to take away<\/a> the anticorruption agencies\u2019 independence and place them under the control of his prosecutor-general.<\/p>\n The agencies regained their autonomy after Zelenskyy\u2019s move sparked the first antigovernment demonstrations in Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022.<\/p>\n Zelenskyy, who enjoys far-reaching wartime powers, initially said he needed to bring the agencies under his control because they were inefficient and under \u201cRussian influence\u201d.<\/p>\n But he then said he had heard people\u2019s anger and submitted a bill<\/a> restoring the agencies\u2019 independence, which was passed by lawmakers<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is important that anticorruption institutions operate independently, and the law passed on Thursday guarantees them all the tools necessary for a real fight against corruption,\u201d Zelenskyy said.<\/p>\n Ukraine\u2019s European allies praised the about-face, having voiced concerns about the original defanging of the agencies.<\/p>\n Top officials had told Zelenskyy that Ukraine was jeopardising its bid for European Union membership by curbing the powers of its antigraft authorities.<\/p>\n In a statement about Saturday\u2019s arrests, Zelenskyy said he was \u201cgrateful to the anti-corruption agencies for their work\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anticorruption agencies arrest four suspects after government forced to backtrack on push to strip them of autonomy. Ukrainian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2575,2000,299,1234,12,285,7661,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-312727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-corruption","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","15":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114960932801121435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}