Ukraine War · updated 22m ago · 3 min read
Zelenskiy Dismisses Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko After Charges Against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos
Zelenskiy dismissed the Attorney General Ruslan Kravchenko. Kravchenko had announced charges against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos.
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Kravchenko dismissed
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko on Monday, invoking Article 11 of martial law and formalizing the removal in a presidential decree published on the official website of the Presidency.
“Zelensky, has removed on Monday from his position the attorney general Ruslan Kravchenko”
The dismissal followed Kravchenko’s public disclosure that he had authorized charges against NABU director Semen Kryvonos for alleged “forgery of official documents to obtain large illicit benefits,” and he also said he approved charges against Oleksander Klimenko without revealing the person’s identity.
Kravchenko said the notice of suspicion was sent and that any attempt to revoke it or remove the information from the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations would constitute “political and unlawful interference,” while the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office denied his statements.
Interfax-Ukraine reported that Zelenskyy submitted a motion to the Verkhovna Rada to grant consent for the dismissal, and that the vote on Kravchenko’s resignation would take place at the Verkhovna Rada’s plenary session on September 15.
The dispute was tied to Operation Carthage, with Interfax-Ukraine saying Kravchenko’s resignation came amid a NABU investigation within the framework of that operation.
Accusations and denials
Zelenskiy urged lawmakers to support Kravchenko’s dismissal without delay, saying, “There is only one course of action for this Prosecutor General: dismissal from office. That is exactly what I told him.”
In response to Kravchenko’s allegations, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine denied that a formal accusation had been filed against its director and described the former prosecutor’s statements as part of a “systematic attack” on the institutions charged with investigating high-level corruption.
UkrMedia News reported that Zelenskyy’s statement came on 14 September shortly after Kravchenko announced that a notice of suspicion had been signed against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos and claimed he was under political pressure.
Interfax-Ukraine said that on September 14 Ruslan Kravchenko signed a notice of suspicion against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos, and that no suspicion notice has been issued to Kravchenko.
The conflict also drew attention from the European Commission, which called for Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions to be protected and allowed to carry out their work without commenting on individual cases, with spokesperson Guillaume Mercier refusing to comment on the cases at the center of the dispute.
What’s at stake next
The European Commission said the reform concerning the prosecutor general remains among the ten priorities agreed with Ukraine, and it maintained that authorities must continue implementing them consistently and effectively.
“The Commission is calling for the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions to be protected”
In Brussels, Guillaume Mercier said independent anti-corruption bodies must be protected and allowed to do their job, while the Commission’s position focused on the capacity to prevent, investigate and prosecute corruption and money laundering as required of a country seeking EU accession.
Interfax-Ukraine reported that the presidential decree No. 905/2026 did not name a successor to the head of the Prosecutor General’s Office, and it said the Verkhovna Rada must consider Kravchenko’s resignation.
The dispute’s trigger was Operation Carthage, which Informat.ro described as an investigation into an alleged criminal organization installed within the structures of the General Prosecutor’s Office, with Kravchenko saying it aimed at accessing files on high-ranking officials of both institutions and stopping such investigations.
As the political process moved toward the September 15 parliamentary vote, Kravchenko remained formally in office as attorney general until the procedure laid down by law was completed, according to the accounts cited by the sources.