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Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau is conducting searches Friday at premises linked to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak as part of a major corruption investigation involving the state nuclear power company.
NABU said in a statement on Telegram that the searches are part of an investigation and did not specify Yermak’s status in it.
NABU and SAPO (Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office) have been investigating the corruption case involving state nuclear monopoly Energoatom for a few weeks now.
Eight suspects have been charged in what is amounting to the most extensive corruption investigation since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.
What is the investigation?
An extensive anti-corruption investigation into allegations of graft involving the state nuclear power company Energoatom has rocked Ukraine.
NABU and SAPO said the investigation, which was 15 months in the making and involved 1,000 hours of audio recordings, uncovered the participation of several members of the Ukrainian government.
The anti-corruption bureau reported that the group was collecting bribes from Energoatom contractors, amounting to 10-15% of each contract’s value.
Around $100 million in funds was laundered, according to the NABU.
“In fact, the management of a strategic enterprise with an annual revenue of over €4 billion was carried out not by officials, but by outsiders who had no formal authority,” the NABU said in a statement.
The allegation is that they received payments from contractors building fortifications against Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, while millions of Ukrainians across the country are suffering from power outages and blackouts after Russian attacks.
The investigation by the anti-corruption bureau alleges that the ringleader and mastermind of the corruption scheme is businessman Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Mindich was one of Zelenskyy’s closest associates before he became president in 2019.
Zelenskyy introduced sanctions against Mindich amid the investigation.
In response to the investigation, Ukraine launched a massive anti-corruption audit of all state-owned companies.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk and Herman Halushchenko, Ukraine’s former energy minister from 2021 to July 2025, and until recently the justice minister, resigned amid the probe.
Quoted from Euronews.
