On July 23, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky gathered all the heads of law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies — the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office, the State Anti-Corruption Commission, the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), and the Ministry of Internal Affairs — and the Prosecutor General. This happened against the backdrop of public outcry over the signing of Law No. 12414, which limits the powers of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office (SAPO).
"We all have a common enemy — the Russian occupiers, and the protection of the Ukrainian state requires sufficient strength of the law enforcement and anti-corruption systems, and therefore a real sense of justice," the president wrote.
He says that "all of us hear the voice of society". According to him, the meeting discussed the necessary administrative and legislative decisions that will strengthen the work of each institution, resolve existing contradictions, and eliminate threats. Everyone will work together, and at the political level they will support this.
"We see what people expect from state institutions to ensure the justice and efficiency of each institution," Zelensky wrote.
He emphasized that criminal proceedings should not last for years without lawful verdicts, and those who work against Ukraine should not feel comfortable and not feel the inevitability of punishment.
A working meeting on the general action plan will take place next week. And in two weeks, a joint plan should be ready with specific necessary steps that will be implemented to "strengthen Ukraine and resolve existing issues, provide more justice, and truly protect the interests of Ukrainian society".
"We agreed that everyone will work exclusively constructively," Zelensky wrote.
What law are we talking 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 high-ranking 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 the 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, SBU reported the discovery of new leaks of secret data in the NABU — during searches at Khrystenkoʼs house, confidential the 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.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.