A new law limiting the independence of two Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies has sparked a backlash against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with protesters taking to the streets in cities across the country and stern warnings to scrap the legislation from European capitals key to fighting the war against Russia.
Officials from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) met with Zelenskyy on July 23 to demand a repealing of the law less than a day after the president signed it.
"NABU and SAPO are being deprived of the guarantees that previously allowed them to effectively fulfill their tasks and functions in combating top corruption," the agencies said in a Telegram post on July 23.
Zelenskyy has said the move to bring the agencies under the control of the Prosecutor General -- whom the president appoints -- was made to rid them of alleged Russian influence. The agencies' work is seen as essential to Kyiv's path to join the European Union.
"We hear the people," Zelenskyy said after the meeting, adding that along with state's top security authorities and the heads of agencies, an agreement was reached to create a joint plan on how to operate within the next two weeks.
Still, NABU and SAPO officials said, the newly adopted legislative changes significantly limit their independence and "clear and unambiguous steps" are needed to restore the safeguards against governmental interference that they were previously guaranteed.
The European Union called the decision to adopt the bill a "serious step back," while other opponents of the law voiced concern that it represented a reversal after a decade of democratization.
Germany said the legal change "hampers Ukraine's way towards the EU," while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has asked Zelenskyy to explain the amendments to the anti-corruption agencies law, expressing strong concerns about their potential consequences.
"President von der Leyen conveyed her strong concerns about the consequences of the amendments, and she requested the Ukrainian government for explanations," EU spokesman Guillaume Mercier said.
Benjamin Haddad, France's European Affairs minister, added on July 23 it was not too late for Ukraine to reverse the decision.
"It is not too late to go back on this," Haddad told France Inter radio. "We will be extremely vigilant on the subject."
Despite massive air attacks on the capital in recent days, hundreds of Ukrainians protested in central Kyiv, demanding Zelenskyy to veto the bill, saying it had been rushed through and would allow the government to meddle in high-profile corruption cases.
"What’s happening now is absolutely irrational. In essence, Ukraine is being dragged 10 years back in terms of its fight against corruption," Kyiv local Dmytro told RFE/RL's Ukrainian service.
NABU investigates corruption among state institutions, while the SAPO prosecutes other corruption. Some of the NABU's high-profile investigations since it began its work in 2015 have embarrassed senior officials.
The new law, brought forward in parliament by Zelenskyy's Servant of the People Party, made the Prosecutor General the de facto head of SAPO, effectively stripping authority away from the agency's chief.
It also allowed the Prosecutor General to unilaterally close cases involving top officials and lets the Prosecutor General reassign cases being investigated by NABU to other agencies.
Speaking at the briefing before the Ukrainian media on July 23, General Prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko claimed the agencies would continue to function as previously envisaged.
“The prosecutor general has only been granted broader powers and an increased scope of authority,” he told a news conference on July 23.
The legal changes to the work of NABU and SAPO came after a crackdown on the agencies themselves.
On July 21, Ukraine’s domestic security agency, the SBU, arrested two NABU officials -- one on suspicion of spying for Russia, the other over alleged business ties to Russian entities -- and carried out dozens of searches targeting agency employees.
The agencies claimed the operation went far beyond legitimate security concerns, extending to unrelated issues such as years-old traffic violations.
Kravchenko said that the suspicions were just the beginning of a broader investigation into Russian efforts to influence NABU.
