On July 21 in Kyiv, during the presentation of the analytical report “Systematic Pressure on Anti-Corruption Activists,” the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office responded to protests against the resignation of Mykhailo Fedorov. Among the reasons for the new protest, he cited corruption, lack of the rule of law, and human rights violations.
This was reported by a Suspilne correspondent from the event.
“To discuss what happened a year ago. The key conclusion is one: the authorities have learned no lessons from the events that occurred a year ago. And the new cardboard Maidan has the same reasons: corruption, lack of the rule of law, and human rights violations. Essentially identical reasons,” emphasized the head of SAP, Oleksandr Klymenko.
According to Klymenko, during Fedorov’s tenure as Minister of Defense, the department received positive signals about systemic changes in the fight against corruption. He outlined that this pertained to reducing corruption in procurement and approaches.
“Our tools cannot fully combat corruption. We can only highlight the problem. One case. There are many such corruption crimes daily. We can investigate one, but we can show where the problem lies, and it can be eradicated through administrative measures – by introducing mechanisms and processes that prevent the repetition of similar crimes. This was happening in the Ministry of Defense,” he clarified.
SAP shared analytics and its understanding of the issues.
Protests of 2025
On July 22, 2025, the Verkhovna Rada voted for a bill, certain provisions of which strip the anti-corruption bodies NABU and SAP of their independence. This is a bill on amendments to the pre-trial investigation of criminal offenses concerning missing persons. By the second reading, amendments concerning SAP and NABU were introduced to it, specifically:
- The Prosecutor General gains the right to issue mandatory written instructions to NABU detectives;
- The Prosecutor General can access all NABU cases or grant such access to any other prosecutor;
- The Prosecutor General can close an investigation at the request of the defense, resolve jurisdiction disputes, and sign suspicions against top officials;
- The prohibition on transferring NABU cases to other law enforcement agencies will be abolished.
The vote on the bill occurred the day after large-scale searches by the SBU of NABU detectives. Late in the evening of July 22, Ukrainian President Zelensky signed the law.
As a result, protests against the adoption of law #12414 swept through several cities in Ukraine, with about two thousand people gathering near the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater in Kyiv. People also took to the streets in Lviv, Dnipro, Rivne, Ternopil, and Odesa.
Source: suspilne.media