Stay in luxury apartments in Kyiv — one with a golden toilet. Sports bags full of money. Audio recordings of officials discussing money laundering strategies. These are just some of the details that have shocked Ukrainians in the past week, as the administration of President Volodymyr Zelensky has been engulfed in the biggest corruption scandal since taking office, destabilizing the leadership in Kiev at a critical moment in the war, according to the Financial Times. Zelenskiy and his closest advisers tried this summer to reduce the powers of independent anti-corruption agencies even as they were wrapping up a wide-ranging investigation into the president's inner circle. But Zelenskiy and his allies were forced to abandon this approach after massive protests and harsh reactions from the country's Western partners. Undeterred, investigators this week released a massive tome of detailed evidence, including devastating allegations that senior officials took bribes for projects to fortify power plants against Russian missile attacks, at a time when Ukrainians live with daily, planned blackouts. The revelations sparked a wave of public anger — «how the president's friends stole the country in wartime,» headlined a typical article on the Ukrainska Pravda website — and forced a change in strategy. Zelenski eventually turned against the suspects in an attempt to protect his presidency. On Wednesday, the Ukrainian president demanded the resignation of the Minister of Justice, German Galushchenko, and the Minister of Energy, Svitlana Hrinciuk, both of whom were subsequently removed from the National Security Council. He also imposed sanctions against Timur Mindici, a friend and former business partner accused in the case. The investigators said that Mindici was a «co-organizer» of the alleged scheme and that approximately 100 million dollars of illegal proceeds passed through his office. «He controlled the activity of the so-called «laundry room», where illegally obtained funds were laundered,» the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) reported. Mindici could not immediately be reached for comment. Despite Zelenskiy's sudden change in attitude, his reaction has been criticized as hesitant, and politicians are waiting for further revelations that could further compromise close allies of the man who runs Ukraine through its brutal war with Russia. Serhiy Fursa, a Ukrainian investment banker and political commentator, wrote on Wednesday: “We cannot afford the president of Ukraine, the government of Ukraine, to lose its last vestiges of legitimacy during war.
Otherwise, we risk losing the state in the same way as during the First World War, when desertions at the front were superimposed on general despair and political division.»
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