The government appointed Tsyvinsky as director of the Bureau of Economic Security

On August 6, the government appointed Oleksandr Tsyvinsky as director of the Bureau of Economic Security (BES).

This was reported by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

According to her, there are no reservations regarding the candidacy of Oleksandr Tsyvinsky after the decision of the competition commission, proper checks, and passing a polygraph test.

What preceded

At the end of June, the competition for the position of the BES director was won by the detective of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) Oleksandr Tsyvinsky. His candidacy was submitted for consideration by the government on June 30. And on July 7, it became known that the government did not approve Tsyvinsky for the position of the BES director and is asking the commission to resubmit candidacies. The commission refused to review the winnerʼs candidacy.

The government cited "national security issues" — Tsyvinskyʼs father lives in Russia.

Tsyvinsky himself stated that for him it was “a matter of principle” to find out what “security assessments” were the basis for the authorities’ respective decision. He stated that as a law enforcement officer he had “successfully passed all SBU inspections” for 10 years, and had also served in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

SBU responded to Tsyvinskyʼs request on July 31 — the letter stated that there were no reasons not to appoint him as director of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine.

The next day, Svyrydenko and Tsyvinsky agreed that he would take a polygraph.

• On June 20, 2024, the Verkhovna Rada adopted in the second reading a bill on the reboot of BES. The bill provides for mandatory recertification of employees, and also establishes that international partners will have the decisive voice in the selection and recertification of employees.
• The law stipulates that the new head of BES must be elected by a commission of six members, half of whom are international experts with the right to cast a decisive vote.
• Rebooting the Bureau of Economic Security is one of the conditions for Ukraine in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Extended Fund Facility. EU support is also tied to this reform.

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