Ukraine's Big Corruption Scandal Cuts Close To Zelenskyy. Will He Weather It?

The central figure in the corruption scandal shaking Ukraine, Tymur Mindich, is an old friend and former business partner of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Law enforcement sources say Mindich left the country shortly before police searched his home.

And prosecutors have reportedly told a court they have a recording of a call in which Zelenskyy is heard speaking to another target of the probe, Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko, while Halushchenko was on a group call with Mindich and Oleksandr Tsukerman, an associate who is also charged and also left the country.

Details of the alleged conversation with Halushchenko and a text communication with Mindich shortly before that are unknown, and Zelenskyy is not under investigation. But his ties with Mindich are just one reason why the scandal is shaping up as the biggest challenge he has faced since his election in 2019.

A comedian who played the role of president on a TV show produced by a company he used to co-own with Mindich, Kvartal 95, Zelenskyy was a political novice when he won the presidency.

A push for peace was a major part of his platform at a time when the war with Russian and anti-Kyiv forces in the eastern Donbas region was simmering. But the full-scale invasion Russia launched in February 2022 has put politics on hold for the most part, protecting Zelenskyy from tests a peacetime leader might have to confront head-on.

SEE ALSO: From Army To Zelenskyy, Ukraine's Corruption Scandal Rocks Country

For one thing, Ukraine’s constitution prohibits elections under martial law, which has been in place since the first day of the invasion. More important, perhaps, Ukrainians have displayed powerful unity in the face of the Russian invasion, a phenomenon that is intertwined with Zelenskyy’s defiance against an onslaught that many outsiders believed would quickly bring the country to its knees.

Rumblings along political fault lines have surfaced at times, like when a rift between Zelenskyy and his top military commander at the time, General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, widened publicly in 2023, leading to the popular officer’s departure from the post and to speculation that he might seek the presidency once elections are held.

'An Uncontrollable Political Crisis'

Wartime unity has tamped these differences down. But the magnitude of the corruption case, dubbed Operation Midas, makes the risk of political upheaval much greater.

Beyond its immediate effects, the scandal “could become the driving force of various domestic political conflicts and situations next year, especially in the event of the end of the war and the holding of postwar elections,” Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

“The main sociopolitical challenge...is to find an acceptable balance between the need for a full-fledged investigation of the case, with its subsequent consideration in court, and the preservation of at least relative domestic political stability in the conditions of a full-scale war [in order to avoid an uncontrollable political crisis during the war],” Fesenko added.

It’s not just Zelenskyy’s ties with Mindich and others implicated in the probe that put the president in political jeopardy. Far from it.

There are other factors that threaten to badly undermine trust in him and his government, from the soldiers on the front lines in the east to Kyiv’s backers in the West -- and among Ukrainians across the country and abroad.

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The specifics of the scandal, which broke amid relentless Russian attacks targeting energy infrastructure, tie it directly to the war and to the government’s main mandate: protecting its citizens.

Suspects are accused of demanding 10-15 percent kickbacks from private subcontractors of Energoatom, the state-run operator of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, and there are indications that may have included contracts for the construction of installations to protect energy facilities.

The cost of the alleged kickbacks is estimated at around $100 million.

NABU And SAPO

Also drawing widespread attention is the fact that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) had been investigating for 15 months before the probe was made public this week.

That has raised suspicions that an abortive attempt by Zelenskyy and his allies in July to curb the independence of the two agencies, which are seen as crucial to Kyiv’s anti-corruption efforts, may have been aimed at quashing the probe.

SEE ALSO: Zelenskyy’s Anti-Corruption Climbdown: What It Means For Ukraine

So far, there has been no sign of the street protests that apparently prompted Zelenskyy to reverse course on NABU and SAPO, but the circumstances were very different -- demonstrators were opposing a law that he signed.

And with Russia rejecting calls for a cease-fire and no end to the war in sight, the scandal provides fodder for politicians in Europe and the United States who have long cited concerns about corruption to bolster their arguments against aid to Ukraine. It could potentially mean more pressure on Kyiv to make territorial concessions to Moscow.

Zelenskyy has been distancing himself from Mindich and the other seven people formally suspected in the investigation, apparently seeking to limit the damage and assuage concerns at home and abroad. On November 13, he signed a decree imposing sanctions including asset freezes on Mindich and Tsukerman.

Zelenskyy told Bloomberg Television on November 12 that he had not spoken to Mindich since the investigation was announced.

“The most important thing is sentences for those people who are guilty,” he said. “The president of a country at war cannot have any friends.”

A Matter Of Trust

Halushchenko -- a former energy minister suspected of receiving some of the kickbacks -- and Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk tendered their resignations on November 12 after Zelenskyy called for their removal, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said. Hrynchuk is not implicated, and both deny wrongdoing.

On November 13, Svyrydenko announced that all state-owned companies would be audited.

Zelenskyy has also sought to placate the West. After a phone call on the same day, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s office said Zelenskyy had “pledged full transparency, long-term support for the independent anti-corruption authorities, and further swift measures to regain the trust of the Ukrainian people, European partners, and international donors.”

Whether it will be enough remains to be seen. It may depend heavily on the outcome of the case, including whether Mindich and Tsukerman -- who has also denied wrongdoing -- return to Ukraine and face justice, and on further steps by his government to uproot corruption, including at the highest levels.

For now, the very fact that the scandal exploded out into the open -- something analysts say would be less likely to happen in Russia or another more tightly controlled country -- may be Zelenskyy’s best argument that he is serious about battling graft.

Investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov, editor of the Ukrainian outlet Nashi Hroshi (Our Money), which has reported on evidence of graft in military supply contracts and government spending, said he “had been talking about this corruption many years ago -- about Halushchenko, about Mindich, and about all the other figures involved.”

“The end was foreseeable from a long distance, but somehow it crept up unnoticed by the authorities,” Nikolov told Current Time, the Russian-language TV and digital network run by RFE/RL. “For me, this is a great relief because it shows the world that we not only have corruption but are also fighting against it.”

With reporting by Rostyslav Khotin, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, and Current Time