Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a law that critics say will weaken the independence of the country’s anti-corruption agencies, prompting protests in the streets, prompting international condemnation, the BBC reported.
Critics say the new law puts the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) directly under the prosecutor general, undermining their independence.
Zelensky said in a speech that both agencies were still operating but needed to be freed from Russian influence. Hundreds of people took to the streets of Kiev after the law was approved, the largest protest in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Protests also took place in Lviv, Dnipro and Odessa.
One protester said he chose Europe over autocracy.
Zelensky’s supporter, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, will now be able to transfer cases to other investigators, and even close them. Zelensky criticized Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities in a speech, noting that many cases are still pending:
“There is no rational explanation for why criminal proceedings worth billions have been “hanging” for years.”
The president added that the prosecutor general’s supervision would ensure “the inevitability of punishment.”
Critics of the law believe that what is happening contradicts the move towards democracy and the prevention of corruption. It was this kind of action that triggered the Euromaidan in 2014, which ended with the fall of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government has cited Russian interference in the work of NABU. The day before the controversial law was passed, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Prosecutor General’s Office jointly carried out the detention of alleged spies.
The events have alarmed the Ukrainian government’s Western allies. It was the Western countries that insisted on the creation of an independent anti-corruption agency a decade ago, and this was one of the main conditions for Ukraine to receive support.
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