Prosecutor General’s Office denies reports Kravchenko missing or hospitalized

Journalist Mykhailo Tkach had reported that Kravchenko could not be located after the operation began, while Dzerkalo Tyzhnia later reported that he was at the Dobrobut clinic in Kyiv.

“Claims that Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko has disappeared or is in a medical facility are untrue. Today, on Sept. 5, he has been at his workplace at the Prosecutor General’s Office since early morning,” office spokesperson Natalia Baiurko told NV.

“Ukrainska Pravda sources in political circles insist that since yesterday, when NABU and SAPO launched Operation Carthage, no one has been able to find Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko. He entered the government quarter and no one has seen him since. His last known location was the Presidential Office,” Tkach wrote on Facebook.

Dzerkalo Tyzhnia sources said Kravchenko was at the Dobrobut clinic in Kyiv’s Novopecherski Lypky neighborhood.

On Sept. 4, NABU announced a special operation targeting a criminal organization allegedly led by a Prosecutor General’s Office official. Ukrainska Pravda sources said NABU and SAPO detained Serhiy Kropyva, head of the Prosecutor General’s Office cyber department. NABU and SAPO said a Prosecutor General’s Office official may have been involved in protecting a network of scam call centers and laundering assets.

The Prosecutor General’s Office later said it was prepared to fully cooperate with anti-corruption agencies investigating the possible involvement of one of its employees in illegal activity linked to scam call centers.

Ukrainska Pravda, citing sources, reported that NABU and SAPO were conducting searches targeting Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, his deputy Maria Vdovychenko and Odesa Oblast Military Administration head Oleh Kiper.

The Prosecutor General’s Office denied on the evening of Sept. 4 that searches were being conducted at Kravchenko’s home or office. Office spokesperson Mariana Haiovska told Ukrainska Pravda that no investigative actions had taken place at either location.

NABU said it had identified five people in the case under Article 255 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, covering the creation and leadership of a criminal organization and participation in one, and Article 209, covering the laundering of assets. If convicted, they face up to 15 years in prison.

On Sept. 5, the Prosecutor General’s Office said that “around midnight, NABU detectives did conduct investigative actions in official premises used by the prosecutor general, the first deputy prosecutor general, as well as other employees and divisions of the Prosecutor General’s Office.”

The office said the scope of the investigative actions, their factual basis and the materials accessed required a separate legal assessment.

“Among the documents accessed during the searches were materials from a criminal proceeding concerning possible unlawful actions by people close to SAPO leadership. The proceeding was investigated under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor General’s Office. SAPO leadership was aware of its existence and the course of the investigation. In addition, detectives gained access to materials from another criminal proceeding, including information obtained through covert investigative measures concerning possible unlawful activity by NABU and SAPO employees,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said.

The office also said the court order authorizing the searches contained no information indicating that Kravchenko had instructed anyone to facilitate the activities of call centers, obstructed efforts to uncover or investigate them, warned anyone about planned investigative actions, received money from such activity or received an improper benefit, or used criminal proceeds to pay for repairs, installation of an alarm system or any other services.

“The link between the routine conversations cited and possible criminal activity is based largely on assumptions. … That is why, in our view, whether such information was sufficient to justify investigative actions in the prosecutor general’s official premises requires a separate assessment,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said.