Zelensky's government takes aim at corruption fighters
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And on Tuesday, the Ukrainian parliament, which Zelensky's party controls, passed a law that — if signed by the president — would give Ukraine's prosecutor general, who was appointed by Zelensky, new powers over investigations by the two agencies.
On Tuesday evening, thousands of people took to the streets outside the president's offices in Kyiv, the capital, to protest the moves — the largest antigovernment protests in years.
Activists and analysts say these developments are part of a broader crackdown on independent media, government oversight agencies, and other voices critical of Zelensky's administration. And they warn that the efforts threaten to dismantle years of hard-won democratic reforms.
'This prosecution of Mr. Shabunin is the opening salvo,' declared Josh Rudolph, who leads the German Marshall Fund's corruption team, characterizing it as a 'brazen campaign to undermine the entire ecosystem constructed to root out corruption.'
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The Zelensky government did not respond to written questions but has broadly dismissed criticism that it has tried to silence dissent.
The director of the anticorruption bureau, Semen Kryvonos, and the head of the special prosecutor's office, Oleksandr Klymenko, criticized the legislation giving the prosecutor general new powers over the agencies shortly after parliament passed it.
Speaking at a news conference in Kyiv, Kryvonos said that the imperative 'to fight high-level corruption' was 'destroyed by representatives in parliament.' He added, 'The president of Ukraine still has to sign this law, and we ask that he does not sign it.'
In the raids on the two agencies, the Ukrainian authorities detained one employee working with the anticorruption bureau, saying he was working against state interests. The bureau said in a statement that it had worked closely with Ukrainian security services about concerns related to the employee for years but had never been provided with any evidence against him.
Meanwhile, the bureau has been investigating possible abuses by people in the Zelensky administration, including Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, who was charged with corruption on June 23.
The Group of 7, which represents the world's major industrialized nations, issued a statement Monday night expressing 'serious concerns' about the Ukrainian government's investigation into the bureau and said it would 'discuss these developments with government leaders.'
The two agencies were created more than a decade ago specifically to provide an independent check on government abuse, bypassing traditional law enforcement, which was seen as riddled with corruption. They were formed with the assistance of the FBI, supported by the European Union, and nurtured by successive US administrations.
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But the agencies drew criticism from President Trump's supporters in his first administration for what they saw as Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 presidential election to favor Hillary Clinton. The agency had investigated off-the-books payments in Ukraine to Trump's campaign chair in the 2016 race, Paul Manafort, leading to Manafort's resignation.
As for the prosecution of Shabunin, 59 nongovernmental organizations signed an open letter to Zelensky late last week, saying it 'bears signs of political motivation, abuse of rights,' and either 'gross incompetence' or 'a deliberate attack to pressure' Shabunin.
'Ukraine's allies have been saying for three years that the country is bravely fighting for the free world — where democracies obey the rule of law and do not target activists for persecution,' said Rudolph of the German Marshall Fund. 'If they remain silent in this precarious moment, their words of support for Ukrainian freedom will prove shamefully hollow.'
But Europe has largely chosen silence over censure, prioritizing unity in the fight against Russia.
Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Kyiv-based Anti-Corruption Action Center, a nongovernmental group of which Shabunin was a cofounder, said the Zelensky administration had taken this silence as a 'green light' to target critics.
Dismissing the charges against Shabunin as absurd, Kaleniuk said, 'This is the moment when Zelensky and his administration has very clearly crossed the red line, a line that is unacceptable to Ukrainian society.'
Leading Ukrainian media outlets also published scathing editorials criticizing Shabunin's prosecution.
Zelensky's critics in Ukraine acknowledge a concern the government has raised — that Moscow is working hard to fuel corruption narratives as part of its efforts to undermine Western support. Ukraine relies heavily on weapons and financial support from its allies, and it is seeking billions of dollars more each year to expand production by its own arms industry.
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Shabunin himself noted this tension.
'Whatever it will be with me, we as Ukraine should get weapons from the West,' he said. 'We can, as a society, deal with any kind of Ukrainian politician.'
Rudolph said the campaign against independent agencies and activists 'is doing Putin's work for him,' referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
'I doubt that is the intent, but it makes it all the more ironic to use Russian influence as the pretext,' he said.
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