Kravchenko exit opens fight over Ukraine’s next prosecutor general — NV analysis

On the evening of Sept. 7, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, amid a high-profile NABU and SAPO investigation in the Operation Carthage case into alleged protection of call centers by representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office, submitted his resignation. He called it a “political decision” that he made “deliberately.” The process of reaching that “realization” appears to have involved President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself — at the very least, Kravchenko met with the president.

“I had a fairly long meeting with the prosecutor general. He wrote the relevant resignation letter, and the motion will be sent to the Verkhovna Rada,” the president said.

Just a day earlier, Kravchenko had said he had no procedural status in the Operation Carthage case, viewed the situation surrounding him as an attempt at political pressure and did not plan to resign.

Over the weekend, NABU and SAPO carried out searches at locations linked to Kravchenko, his deputy Mariia Vdovychenko and Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa Oblast Military Administration. The previous day, the High Anti-Corruption Court ordered the case’s main suspect, Serhii Kropyva, head of the Prosecutor General’s Office cyber department, held in custody, with bail set at 120 million hryvnias. The court also ordered his live-in partner Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko and driver Serhii Kutsyi held in custody.

A meeting of the Verkhovna Rada’s law enforcement committee was scheduled for Sept. 8, and Kravchenko even attended, prepared to answer questions about Operation Carthage. But an NV source on the committee who agreed to speak anonymously said the meeting was opened and quickly closed — apparently to keep Kravchenko from saying too much and having the information spread through the media.

Lawmakers ultimately decided to hold an emergency committee meeting once the president submits a motion seeking parliament’s consent to dismiss the prosecutor general.

Dismissing Kravchenko will not be difficult for the president. The harder question comes next: If the current head of the Prosecutor General’s Office is removed, who will fill the vacant seat?

Temporary solution

Under Zelenskyy, every prosecutor general has ostensibly resigned of their own accord, Tetiana Shevchuk, a lawyer and board member of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, told NV.

“Without Zelenskyy, he would not have written that resignation,” the law enforcement committee member said. “He spent two days dodging it any way he could until they summoned him and told him to write the letter. He never would have written it if there had been no political pressure.”

The president must now send the motion to the Rada, and lawmakers must vote to dismiss Kravchenko. The vote could take place as early as next week, when parliament is in plenary session. NV’s sources are confident lawmakers will provide the necessary votes.

The law enforcement committee source, however, doubts that a new prosecutor general will also be appointed next week.

“They don’t have anyone,” the source said.

That means the Prosecutor General’s Office will be led by an acting chief for now. By law, that should be First Deputy Prosecutor General Mariia Vdovychenko. But European Solidarity lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko said she has submitted her resignation. Vdovychenko has not been named a suspect but appears on NABU and SAPO recordings. A search also uncovered jewelry and expensive watches, including Rolex watches, which investigators allege Kropyva gave her for her birthday. Investigative journalists have also described an extensive network of Vdovychenko family ties extending into Russian state agencies.

NV sources therefore believe one of Kravchenko’s other deputies will most likely become acting prosecutor general.

Searching for options

Kravchenko was once close to Odesa Oblast Military Administration head Oleh Kiper, according to NV sources. Former presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak lobbied for Kravchenko’s appointment to the Prosecutor General’s Office. Yermak is no longer at the Presidential Office, so a potential candidate for prosecutor general could come from Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Oleh Tatarov’s “quota” or be backed by parliament. Shevchuk said lawmakers would prefer to see one of their own in the job, with Servant of the People lawmaker and law enforcement committee chair Serhii Ionushas among the possible candidates.

A source on the Rada law enforcement committee said Ionushas has indeed been put forward for prosecutor general several times. But the source was adamant that “this is absolutely not the job for him — he can’t manage the committee.”

Shevchuk added that Servant of the People parliamentary faction leader David Arakhamia definitely wants “his own” prosecutor general amid rumors of possible investigations involving him.

“Other positions in the law enforcement system do not matter as much to lawmakers, but the prosecutor general is the person who authorizes criminal investigations, effectively controls parliamentary immunity and enters cases in the register of pretrial investigations,” Shevchuk said. “For many lawmakers, that is their guarantee of safety.”

As for Tatarov’s possible candidates, Shevchuk believes he would most likely promote someone from among the heads of regional prosecutor’s offices or departments of the Prosecutor General’s Office. She added that Kravchenko had “reshuffled” personnel around himself over the past year, making it difficult to determine which officials in the office are close to the deputy presidential chief of staff.

An office of ‘loyalists’

Finding a candidate is the tactical problem. There is also a strategic one: Shevchuk believes that under the current system and procedures, any future prosecutor general will remain dependent on either the president or the parliamentary coalition.

“Under every government we have ever had, the prosecutor general has always been their own loyalist,” the law enforcement committee member who spoke to NV anonymously said.

None of Ukraine’s prosecutors general over the past 12 years has served a full term, Shevchuk stressed.

“Our problem is much broader than simply the individual prosecutor general. It is the procedure itself and the excessive politicization of the position,” she said. “The prosecutor general enters political service to the president or the ruling coalition. In return for those services, he gets carte blanche to engage in corruption.”

Shevchuk believes the problem can be solved only by changing the appointment procedure, one of Ukraine’s commitments on its path to European Union membership. A bill has already been registered in the Verkhovna Rada that would introduce a transparent competitive selection process for prosecutor general and strengthen guarantees of the officeholder’s independence.

Shevchuk is confident Ukraine will adopt changes to the prosecutor general selection process but would not predict when.

“Under the schedule, it is supposed to happen next year. But why put off until next year what can be done now?” she said. “Sooner or later it will happen, like all the other reforms in this sector that face a lot of resistance. There are things more important than some lawmakers’ desire not to go to prison.”

The lawyer believes the change will not come easily because Zelenskyy “will not simply give up” his influence over the appointment and “will not depoliticize this position.”

“How quickly will the Rada do it? It will be just like Kravchenko’s resignation: denial, bargaining, aggression, then passage of the necessary bill,” Shevchuk added.

NV’s source on the law enforcement committee also supported an open competition for the post but said the relevant bill would not be adopted anytime soon.

“If they are required to pass it within six months to a year, they will,” the lawmaker said. “But it has to be a priority. Every time something comes to light, we get hammered for it. Then everyone forgets about it until the next media wave.”

The source said the law needs to be modernized, starting with changes to competitive selection commissions and the composition of the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors.

“The entire prosecution system needs to change. We definitely need competitive selections — some kind of public councils focused on integrity, but proper ones,” the lawmaker added.

‘The same crowd remains’

“You walk into the Prosecutor General’s Office and it is basically a fashion house. Remember when Iryna Venediktova was prosecutor general in 2020–2022 and sat there saying she wore fakes,” the Rada law enforcement committee source told NV. “We are all fixated on Kropyva now, but everyone has forgotten that we already had the same ‘diamond’ prosecutors. Remember all that bling. Remember former prosecutor Dmytro Sus, who registered an Audi to his 86-year-old grandmother.”

“Governments change, people change, prosecutors general change, but the same crowd remains. If we do not change that, nothing will change. We can appoint 150 different prosecutors general if we want,” the NV source said.

The source said the next prosecutor general should therefore work to clean up the system, including introducing polygraph testing and integrity assessments for prosecutors.

If Kravchenko’s successor is a political appointee, that person will carry out the formal and informal tasks assigned by the president and the Rada, Shevchuk said. For lawmakers in particular, reining in NABU and protecting someone’s interests is especially important.

But Shevchuk said the next prosecutor general’s real task should be to shut down illegal call centers.

“The situation with them has really shown that the genie is out of the bottle,” she said. “Protection by law enforcement has allowed them to mushroom. And this has become an international problem for us.”

Another immediate priority for the next prosecutor general, Shevchuk said, is addressing the confrontation between Ukraine’s SBU Security Service and HUR. The head of the Prosecutor General’s Office is responsible for overseeing such investigations and bringing the situation back within the legal framework.