International economic organization warns that attack on NABU and SAPO will harm defense investments in Ukraine

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned the Ukrainian authorities that an attack on anti-corruption agencies will negatively affect defense investments in Ukraine. The letter was received by Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Iryna Mudra.

This is reported by European Truth. Babel sources confirm that the letter did indeed reach Mudra.

In a document dated July 22, the head of the OECD Anti-Corruption Department Julia Fromholz notes that Law No. 12414 significantly undermines the independence of the stateʼs specialized anti-corruption bodies. The Organizationʼs working group may view the new legislative changes as "weakening Ukraineʼs compliance with its obligations", the official predicts.

According to her, the law restricting the work of NABU and SAPO jeopardizes Ukraineʼs aspirations to join OECD. Therefore, Fromholz called on Ukraine and the president to veto this bill.

"In the event that this letter reaches you after the signing of the bill, we call for further legislative changes to preserve the independence of specialized anti-corruption bodies. I urge you to consider this issue with the utmost seriousness," she wrote.

In addition, the law will undermine Kyivʼs authority among international partners, including potential investors in Ukraineʼs defense sector and its reconstruction, suggests Julia Fromholz.

What law is this about?

On July 22, Volodymyr Zelensky signed Law No. 12414, which amends the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Among other things, the Prosecutor General will be granted the following powers:

• to take cases from NABU and entrust the investigation to other bodies;
• be the de facto head of SAPO and delegate the powers of the SAPO prosecutor to other prosecutors;
• provide the NABU detectives with mandatory written instructions;
• independently close cases on suspicion of top officials.

Amendments are also envisaged that will limit the activities of SAPO, namely:

• the SAPO prosecutors will not be able to determine NABUʼs jurisdiction in certain cases;
• the head of SAPO will not be able to resolve disputes about the subjectivity of investigation in cases that NABU can investigate;
• The head of SAPO will not have the authority to amend appeals and cassation complaints filed by the SAPO prosecutors.

NABU and SAPO emphasized that if the document is adopted, the head of SAPO will become a nominal figure, and NABU will lose its independence and turn into a unit of the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office. In Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, and Dnipro, people took to the streets to protest against the bill.

What preceded

On July 21, law enforcement officers conducted mass searches at NABU and SAPO. In particular, they detained one of the heads of the Bureauʼs interregional detective departments Ruslan Maghamedrasulov. According to the investigation, the official was in close contact with the fugitive MP from the banned “OPZZh” party Fedir Khrystenko (he was reported suspected of treason), who is connected to the Russian special services.

NABU reported almost 70 searches involving 15 of its employees. They stated that most of them were due to the employeesʼ involvement in a traffic accident (three employees were later reported as suspicious for this).

SBU also said that it had exposed a mole in NABU who was spying for FSB. At the same time, the Bureau says that back in 2023, the special service was informed about a possible mole, but at that time SBU did not reveal the involvement of the bureau employee in espionage.

NABU and SAPO also accused the Security Service of potentially revealing confidential information about the investigation during investigative actions. SBU called these statements manipulations.

And on July 22, the SBU reported the discovery of new leaks of secret data in the NABU — during searches at Khrystenkoʼs house, confidential NABU documents were found.

After studying the materials of the Security Service of Ukraine and the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office, the court arrested two NABU employees — an employee of the NABU Central Office, who, according to the investigation, works in the closed unit "D-2", and one of the heads of the interregional departments of the NABU detectives Ruslan Maghamedrasulov.

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