Parliament
On July 22, Tuesday, the faction leadership told the deputies from the “Servant of the People” (SN) party that they must be in parliament. They announced that they would have to vote on the Rada’s appeal to the American Congress on strengthening US leadership in supporting Ukraine. Instead, a surprise awaited some of the “servants” at work. In the morning, the Committee on Law Enforcement Activities managed to vote on amendments to bill 12414 on missing persons — they did this without the chairman of the committee Serhiy Ionushus, his deputy Andriy Osadchuk and the head of the subcommittee on criminal legislation, the author of the bill on missing persons Oleksandr Bakumov.
The interlocutor of Babel in the SN says that the story with the voting on amendments in the committee was "talentedly" twisted in a bad sense of the word. The night before, one third of the members of the Committee, secretly from the others, initiated a morning meeting. Instead of Ionushus, who, according to the interlocutor, "went" on a business trip, the meeting was supposed to be led by Osadchuk. He did not come, and instead of him, the deputy head of the Committee, the "servant" Maksym Pavlyuk, the initiator of the law on missing persons, chaired.
To write this article, Babel spoke with:
Four MPs from the "Servant of the People" party.
Three interlocutors in the Office of the President.
The SBU head Vasyl Malyuk and Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko at press conferences and the latterʼs briefing.
The President of Ukraine and Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko in an off-camera format together with other journalists.
Two representatives of the opposition.
Several interlocutors in the NABU and SAPO.
Without internal opposition, the committee passed “successfully”. It was attended by the authors of the amendments, committee members — “servants” Maksym Buzhansky, Vladyslav Borodin, Oleh Kolev and others. Thus, the draft law, which had nothing to do with anti-corruption bodies, contained norms that limited the powers of SAPO and NABU, deprived them of the exclusive right to investigate top corruption, and generally undermined the autonomy of all prosecutors. The Prosecutor General received almost unlimited rights. For example, to request any cases and give them to other prosecutors for “study” or even transfer them to other law enforcement agencies.
Within a few hours, the draft law was brought to the session hall. By this point, preparatory work had been carried out with the MPs. In the chat of the “servants” faction, they urged them to vote, convincing them that the project was extremely important and had already been agreed upon with their partners. According to them, some of the MPs had received phone calls the day before from the faction’s head Davyd Arakhamia and personally from the head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak. There were also those who were not “processed”, pressured, or asked — it is about the “servants” who later did not support the draft law. They say that the leadership obviously knew the position in advance and did not waste time. Davyd Arakhamia was responsible for the overall effectiveness of the vote. The MP Andriy Motovylovets collected the votes.
Anyone who did not see the amendments in advance did not know what exactly they were voting for. According to the regulations, deputies were supposed to familiarize themselves with the amended bill at least 10 days before the vote. Instead, the new text appeared on the Verkhovna Radaʼs website 15 minutes before the meeting, and MPs received it in paper form in 5 minutes. It was impossible to understand 46 pages of a complex legal text during this time.
Despite the violation, Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk put the law up for consideration. MPs from “Voice” and “European Solidarity” tried to prevent it. The EU deputy Iryna Herashchenko achieved a vote to have Stefanchuk suspended from work for two plenary days for violating the rules. However, there were not enough votes, and the “servants” were told to “vote red” — 132 deputies obediently pressed the “against” buttons. Already during the vote, “Motherland” MP Serhiy Vlasenko assured his colleagues that the amendments simply return the legislation to the constitutional course. At 1:30 p.m., 263 deputies supported the law. So that the results of the vote could not be canceled due to a blocking resolution, “servant” Maksym Buzhanskyi proposed declaring the bill “urgent”. There were enough votes for this — Stefanchuk signed the bill on the same day, sent it to Bankova, and by the evening the document had the president’s signature.
263 MPs from different factions volunteered to reduce the powers of SAPO and NABU. MPs from "Voice" and "European Solidarity" tried to prevent the vote.
"After the vote, many said that the "servants" were broken at the knee, and this is partly true, as is the fact that some voted absolutely voluntarily because they hate anti-corruption agencies. And there are reasons for this," says a MP from the SN, who did not support the bill. According to him, NABU has been emphatically disdainful of deputies for years. When detectives come to meetings of the Temporary Investigative Commissions, their speeches and addresses sound so that every MP understands that he is an empty seat for them.
Another MP, who also voted against the bill, says that the "anti-anti-corruption vibe" in the Verkhovna Rada are partly facilitated by cases against MPs: in the SN alone, 11 people received suspicions from NABU, but even among them there are those who collapsed in court. For example, this was the case with the "servant" Yuriy Kamelchuk — he spent several years proving his innocence, and on March 16, the Supreme Court of Justice acquitted him.
"Yuriy told how much resources and time he spent on these courts. And how many resources, accordingly, the state wasted — such stories affect the attitude towards anti-corruption activists," the MP says.
The Security Forces
The president’s team did not calculate the public’s reaction to the bill. When young people gathered in the squares with cardboard signs on Tuesday evening, the Presidentʼs Office did not yet understand the scale of the protests. No one commented on the situation publicly. The Security Forces were sent to communicate with the media — Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko and the SBU head Vasyl Malyuk. Late in the evening on July 22, they held a press conference. Most of the time they talked about searches, the Russian trail, and moles in NABU. Malyuk was in the lead — he spoke a lot and emotionally, often interrupted the Prosecutor General and did not let him get a chance to speak. Malyuk was clearly annoyed that SBU, which is fighting Russian agents, implementing the “Spiderʼs Web” and blowing up the Crimean Bridge, suddenly had to justify itself to journalists for exposing Russian agents in NABU.
In particular, Malyuk was outraged that detective Ruslan Maghamedrasulov, who is suspected of aiding the aggressor state, behaved impudently during the SBU search, and before that he himself initiated searches of the commander of the National Guard Oleksandr Pivnenko, which undermined the fighting spirit of his subordinates.
“It was necessary to meet them [the detectives] from the pass with a pistol — and leave two magazine chargers there,” Malyuk said emotionally.
Prosecutor General Kravchenko calmly assured journalists that he would not abuse his expanded rights and would not take the case of Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov from NABU, which, according to many deputies and security officers, could have become one of the causes of the crisis between the president and anti-corruption agencies.
Meanwhile, the number of protesters on the streets of various cities was increasing. In Kyiv alone, the evening protest, according to law enforcement officials, gathered no less than 5 000 people. The next day, on Wednesday morning, the president met with the Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, the NABU director Semen Kryvonos, the SAPO head Oleksandr Klymenko, the Interior Ministry head Ihor Klymenko, the SBU head Vasyl Malyuk, the SBI head Oleksiy Sukhachev, and the NAPC head Viktor Pavlushchyk.
“The meeting was more about emotions than about the law,” says Babel’s interlocutor, familiar with its details. Prosecutor General Kravchenko was mostly silent. Malyuk was traditionally active. Zelensky and the heads of SAPO and NABU voiced mutual claims. One of the main claims of all security officers to Semyon Kryvonos and Oleksandr Klymenko was the excessive PR of the investigative actions of the anti-corruption agencies.
On July 23, the president met with the heads of law enforcement agencies. From left to right: the head of the State Bureau of Investigation Oleksiy Sukhachev, the director of NABU Semen Kryvonos, the head of SAPO Oleksandr Klymenko, President, the Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Commission Viktor Pavlushchyk.
"They even report loudly about searches, and after that people are already sure that the person involved is a criminal. The fact that there may not even be suspicion after that is of no interest to anyone — it is a stigma on a person," says the interlocutor and adds that no famous names or wishes regarding cases were mentioned during the conversation. There were also no hidden hints that NABU is leaking some of the materials to the media for the sake of PR.
The official outcome of the meeting was an agreement on a new meeting — on July 28, the heads of law enforcement agencies were to gather at the Prosecutor Generalʼs office, develop proposals, and submit them to the president. In the end, everyone left the president with their own ideas — the heads of NABU and SAPO wanted everything to be rolled back without compromise.
This position, in addition to people on the streets, was reinforced by Western partners. Ambassadors from various countries began to demand meetings with government officials and the Prosecutor General. American senators reminded that support for Ukraine is linked to the effectiveness of the anti-corruption fight.
The first to respond to the crisis were the G7 ambassadors. On July 22, they met with Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, the SBU head Vasyl Malyuk, and the SBI director Oleksiy Sukhachev.
MPs also faced a sharp reaction to the vote. The Ukrainian School of Political Studies expelled seven MPs from its institution. After that, the Aspen Institute Kyiv banned nine MPs from participating in community events. MPs in closed chats began to ask many questions, resent that they had been used blindly, and look for those responsible.
In parallel, journalists were also looking for the ideologists of the complex scheme, and the Presidentʼs Office tried to "appoint" them. Starting from Wednesday, July 23, Babelʼs interlocutors close to the Presidentʼs Office began to assure that the amendments to the bill were initiated by the head of SBU Vasyl Malyuk — he himself went to the deputies, and they, with the hands of the ideologically charged Maksym Buzhansky and Hryhorii Mamka, rigged the vote. This version looked illogical — Malyuk had no motives and significant influence on the deputies, could not force the president to quickly sign the law and in the end would not have received much benefit from it. On the contrary, under the new law, the head of the SBU and his deputies remained the only heads of law enforcement agencies to whom the head of SAPO could still hand over suspicion.
Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko was called another "ideologist" who, unlike Malyuk, had a motive, but also lacked resources and claimed that he first saw the bill in the Telegram channel of the MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
On the evening of Wednesday, July 23, the president promised to collect recommendations from law enforcement leaders and, based on them, submit a new bill that "will ensure the strength of the law enforcement system, and there will be no Russian influence or interference in the activities of law enforcement agencies".
Presidentʼs bill
On the afternoon of July 24, Volodymyr Zelensky gathered journalists for a closed-door meeting. The first and main question that interested everyone was how he planned to get out of the crisis. The journalists did not know that while they were waiting for the president without phones, he had approved the text of the bill, which, according to him, "will protect the law enforcement system from the Russian trail and guarantee the independence of SAPO and NABU".
What the presidential bill changes
The Prosecutor General may not entrust the pre-trial investigation of a case under the jurisdiction of the NABU to another body, except for objective circumstances for this. In such cases, the decision is made by the head of the SAPO or the Prosecutor General himself.
The Prosecutor General cannot request pre-trial investigation materials from NABU.
The Prosecutor General does not have the right to give written instructions to NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors.
Employees of the NABU, SAPO, the Bureau of Economic Security, the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office, and the State Bureau of Investigation who have access to state secrets must undergo a polygraph test every two years to determine whether they have committed acts in favor of Russia.
During martial law, NABU employees can only travel abroad on official business trips.
Presidential Bill No. 13533 rolled back almost all innovations. The norm that prosecutors can be hired in the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office and regional prosecutorʼs offices without a competition remains. Among the new provisions is that employees of law enforcement agencies, in particular SAPO and NABU, must undergo a polygraph test every two years to determine any ties to Russia. In NABU, this check will be conducted by the Bureauʼs Internal Control Department, according to a methodology agreed with SBU. SBU will conduct the first major check of all law enforcement agencies within six months after the law is introduced.
At the off-site meeting, a visibly tired Zelensky, occasionally getting irritated, tried to explain to journalists that there was a mistake with the previous law, at least in terms of communication, now there is a new one, and he himself does not understand why the media are primarily interested in SAPO and NABU.
"Donʼt you like that I often say the word ʼwarʼ? It simply is. And this is the biggest challenge," the president said, adding: "I think [the MPs] will vote for the presidential bill."
According to Babel, the draft of the presidential bill was actually written by representatives of NABU and SAPO. According to an interlocutor in the Presidentʼs Office, the “moderator” was the Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. They worked on the project for almost a day, and the finished text was transferred to the Office of the President, specifically to the Deputy Head of the Presidentʼs Office Iryna Mudra.
"We are satisfied with the document — all our wishes were taken into account. We were only waiting for its publication on the Councilʼs website to check whether the text had changed," says Babelʼs interlocutor at NABU.
NABU and SAPO supported the presidentʼs bill, which they themselves wrote.
The vote was scheduled for July 31. Some parliamentarians who previously supported bill 12414 have already publicly admitted their mistake, such as the representative of “Voice” Tamila Tasheva. The situation in the “Servant of the People” is complicated: the MPs, who were not protected by either the faction leadership or the Presidentʼs Office after the vote, are demanding an "official investigation" and an explanation of who was the ideologist of the first bill and is responsible for everything that happened.
The situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that some of the "servants" have long been talking about their readiness to resign their mandates. Now these threats have intensified, but the faction does not take them seriously — the mandate cannot be resigned just like that, this decision must be supported by the Verkhovna Rada. The SN is certain that this will not happen.
In addition, the deputies who supported the scandalous amendments are now afraid of retaliation from SAPO. Its head Oleksandr Klymenko stated in an interview with Suspilne that “we will analyze all these situations, all events and all statements, all accusations and claims that are made against us. We will analyze them to the molecules, recreate the chronology of events second by second and analyze it”.
Because of such statements, Davyd Arakhamia even told MPs in the faction chat that he was convincing the president and Western partners of “the need for guarantees of the security of each [MP]”.
“It would actually be extremely ironic if the Ukrainian parliament decided to demonstrate subjectivity this time and not support the presidential bill,” says one of the “servants” who will vote in favor on Thursday, July 31.
P.S.
None of the MPs from different factions and security forces interviewed by Babel doubt that the scheme with Bill 12414 was conceived and implemented by the Office of the President. Only there would have had enough resources and influence to pass such a bill in one day, in violation of the regulations, and get it signed by the president in the evening.
The reasons for dissatisfaction with the anti-corruption bodies in the Office are various — from their insufficiently effective work to the persecution of people from the presidentʼs entourage, for example, Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov.
Whatever it was, the authorities had a plan A. On July 19, at the suggestion of the MP from “Motherland” Serhiy Vlasenko, the parliament created a Temporary Investigative Commission (TIC). It was supposed to investigate corruption in all law enforcement agencies.
“In the end, TIC was supposed to create something like bill 12414,” an interlocutor familiar with the work of the Commission tells Babel.
TIC was headed by an ardent critic of anti-corruption agencies Serhiy Vlasenko and his deputy was Maksym Buzhansky. The commission also included MP from the Peopleʼs Party of Ukraine for the Protection of the Rights of the Child Hryhorii Mamka and the "servant" Maksym Pavlyuk. The former later became the author of the scandalous amendments, the latter carried out the amendments through the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada.
"Vlasenko was already sketching out a blank draft of the bill," says the interlocutor of Babel, but something forced them to speed up and use plan B.