EXCLUSIVE — Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-corruption authorities are being weaponized to weaken President Volodymyr Zelensky and sabotage President Donald Trump’s peace efforts to Russia’s benefit, the country’s former top prosecutor alleges.
Ruslan Kravchenko, a former prosecutor general of Ukraine who resigned in September 2026, accused the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of abusing unsubstantiated criminal investigations to break up Zelensky’s team and pressure the officials responsible for negotiating an end to the war.
“We see that only Russia benefits from it,” Kravchenko said in an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner from Austria. “The main goal [of NABU and SAPO] is that Ukraine’s president and his team should achieve nothing, and that Trump’s team should not succeed either.”
He urged the Trump administration to investigate what he described as “corruption in the anti-corruption agencies” and “crimes being committed in NABU and SAPO,” calling for an independent audit involving U.S. law enforcement to examine the agencies’ cases and spending of American taxpayer money.
Kravchenko’s allegations come as corruption investigations have reached Zelensky’s inner circle and Trump has questioned whether the Ukrainian president can deliver a peace agreement. In October, Trump called for Ukraine to replace Zelensky with a leader who could strike a deal with Russia.
Washington is meanwhile preparing to mediate a new round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10 and 11. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said the discussions would focus on postwar security arrangements, de-escalation and humanitarian efforts as part of Trump’s push to end the war.
NABU, led by Semen Kryvonos, and SAPO, headed by Oleksandr Klymenko, are backed by the U.S. and European governments as part of a Western effort to combat high-level corruption in Ukraine. Both have received U.S. support, and the EU has tied financial assistance to their independence.
In July 2025, Zelensky signed a law placing the agencies under Kravchenko’s oversight, then reversed course after street protests and criticism from European allies. Kravchenko defended the law as an attempt to bring prosecutors’ powers into line with Ukraine’s Constitution and alleged that the agencies subsequently targeted officials and lawmakers who supported the change.
From war crimes prosecutor to exile
In this undated photo provided by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Press Office, Ruslan Kravchenko, Prosecutor General of Ukraine poses for photo in his office in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Press Office via AP)" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/AP26257552067551.jpg?w=1024" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/AP26257552067551.jpg?w=1024" alt="In this undated photo provided by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Press Office, Ruslan Kravchenko, Prosecutor General of Ukraine, poses for a photo in his office in Kyiv, Ukraine." class="wp-image-4795439" srcset="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/AP26257552067551.jpg 1024w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/AP26257552067551.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/AP26257552067551.jpg?resize=768,512 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">
In this undated photo provided by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Press Office, Ruslan Kravchenko, Prosecutor General of Ukraine, poses for a photo in his office in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Press Office via AP)
Before becoming Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Kravchenko served as a military prosecutor and investigated cases involving Russia’s 2014 occupation of Crimea. He took charge of the Bucha district prosecutor’s office in 2021 and, following Russia’s full-scale invasion the next year, investigated war crimes committed by Russian troops.
“The bodies of civilians were lying in the streets,” he recalled of returning to the Bucha district after its liberation by Ukrainian forces.
Kravchenko is the latest high-profile casualty of the internal war between unelected U.S.-backed authorities and Zelensky’s wartime government and was forced to flee Ukraine out of fear of retribution.
He says NABU and SAPO forced him out over his investigations into NABU’s leadership and people close to SAPO’s chief. He submitted his resignation after meeting with Zelensky, whom he claims was under pressure from the agencies to remove him, but hoped parliament would reject his resignation.
“This was not the president’s personal decision,” he said. “Without evidence, they put pressure on both the president and me to destroy me and remove me from office.”
Kravchenko ended up in Austria in self-imposed exile after traveling to France on official business and then deciding to stay because he feared retaliation if he returned to Ukraine.
“The result of my return would be public vengeance, so that no one else would ever dare investigate cases against them,” he said.
Kravchenko accuses anti-corruption agencies of sabotaging Trump’s peace push
Kravchenko accused NABU and SAPO of sabotaging peace talks by publicizing investigations involving Ukraine’s negotiators just before they meet, leaving Ukraine’s negotiators worried about their own futures while negotiating an end to the war.
“During the negotiation, they have to think not about the negotiation, but about the cases, how to protect themselves,” he said.
He alleged that the agencies’ goal was to prevent both Zelensky and Trump from securing a peace agreement. “Trump’s team should not succeed in the peace negotiations, because they are all being disrupted,” he said.
He added: “Perhaps NABU and SAPO are acting on the instructions of some third party and acting deliberately to prevent Trump from achieving his goal and Ukraine from achieving its goal … to derail all these peace agreements so another country benefits.”
Asked why NABU and SAPO’s leaders would want the war to continue, Kravchenko pointed to Russia and political forces that stood to gain from failed peace talks, without specifying a personal benefit to the agencies’ leaders. “The benefits are received by Russia, but also by all those political opponents of those who want to make peace,” he said.
Kravchenko called upon Trump’s administration to scrutinize the pressure on Ukraine’s negotiating team and questioned why the agencies would publicize their investigations immediately before talks if their purpose was to help the country.
“And what’s the reason why they do it? It’s not logical to do it in this way, if they want to benefit Ukraine,” he said.
Nicolai Petro, a political science professor at the University of Rhode Island, agreed that the investigations were curbing Zelensky’s power, while cautioning that their purpose was open to competing interpretations.
“That’s inevitably true. The question becomes: to what end?” he told the Washington Examiner, adding that even supporters of continuing the war — what he called the “war party” — could see an advantage in replacing a president associated with corruption scandals.
“If we got rid of Zelensky, then maybe some of this corruption could be taken off the table, and then the money will flow again for the war effort,” he said, describing one possible political calculation for escalating attacks against Zelensky’s government.
Petro added that supporters of a ceasefire might also use the investigations to push Zelensky toward a deal. The aim would be to “remind him of the limits of his power and how much he is beholden to the West,” he said.
A fight for control of Zelensky’s government
Despite losing his job, Kravchenko called Zelensky a “hero” for defending Ukraine and seeking international support, while accusing NABU and SAPO’s leaders of trying to take power out of the elected president’s hands.
“And now they are trying to monopolize power,” he said. He alleged that the agencies’ leaders sought control over government appointments and parliamentary votes to protect their own interests and block investigations into their conduct.
“The president elected by the people of Ukraine should govern the country, make its important decisions and negotiate with international partners, such as President Trump,” he said.
He pointed to the case against former presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak as an attempt to pressure Zelensky directly. Yermak was accused in May 2026 of participating in a money-laundering scheme, an allegation he denies.
Kravchenko declined to assess the allegations against Yermak but said the case documents identified Zelensky as “person number one” and noted his presidential immunity. He argued that the reference warned Zelensky that investigators could pursue him and his allies.
Lawmakers faced similar pressure, he said, with criminal investigations giving the agencies a means to influence their votes.
Kravchenko recalled a December 2025 phone call in which Zelensky told him to take an official trip and leave his first deputy in charge. The president explained that the leaders of NABU and SAPO did not want to deal with him.
While Kravchenko was away, his deputy received a request to authorize proceedings against 25 lawmakers from the president’s party. The deputy refused. SAPO’s chief later brought the request to Kravchenko.
“I asked about the evidence. There was no evidence,” he said.
Kravchenko said he signed a subsequent request involving five lawmakers because it included evidence. He alleged that the original effort to pursue 25 lawmakers at once was intended to paralyze parliament when the country needed urgent wartime legislation.
Gordon Hahn, a Russia and Eurasia analyst, described Kravchenko as “a key pillar” of Zelensky’s system. He linked the former prosecutor’s removal to a broader struggle over the president’s control of parliament and Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies.
Hahn suggested that European supporters of continuing the war could also have reasons to weaken Zelensky’s authority. “They may be seeking to gain greater control over Ukraine in order to wage the war more effectively,” he said.
Kravchenko urges Washington to investigate
Kravchenko said NABU and SAPO should continue investigating corruption, but accused their leaders of using those investigations to control government decisions and pressure Ukraine’s negotiating team.
“These agencies must exist,” he said. “The problem is with the people who lead them.”
He urged Washington to examine whether pressure on Ukrainian negotiators was undermining Trump’s effort to end the war.
Kravchenko called on the Trump administration to back an independent audit involving U.S. law enforcement to establish how the agencies conducted their investigations, what evidence supported their cases, and where American taxpayer money went.
NABU and SAPO rejected allegations of political interference in separate statements to the Washington Examiner. SAPO said its investigation concerned an alleged criminal organization within the Prosecutor General’s Office that took bribes from fraudulent call centers and laundered the proceeds. “It has absolutely no connection to the country’s political sphere,” the agency said.
Both agencies said Kravchenko had not been charged.
NABU dismissed Kravchenko’s statements as “part of a defense strategy” and claimed the agencies stayed out of both domestic and international politics.
SAPO said it had asked the acting prosecutor general on Nov. 4 to initiate the audit required by Ukrainian law and was ready to cooperate. NABU separately said a recent international audit had confirmed its effectiveness.
Both agencies thanked the United States for its support. NABU credited years of institutional assistance with helping it achieve its results, while SAPO thanked the American people for supporting Ukraine “in its fight for independence against Russian aggression and occupation.”
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
