Ukraine's Prosecutor General Leaves Country After Striking Back at Anti-Corruption Bodies

Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) announced on September 4 the launch of operation "Carthage," aimed at exposing law enforcement officers who allegedly protected fraudulent call centers. Searches were conducted not only at offices of Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko's subordinates but also targeted Kravchenko himself, who temporarily disappeared from his workplace.

On September 5 and 6, Kravchenko repeatedly vanished from and reappeared in public view. After meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky, he announced a "conscious political" decision to resign, but a formal presidential submission for his dismissal never reached parliament within the following week. David Arakhamia, head of the presidential parliamentary faction, reportedly urged against rushing the personnel decision.

Suspicion notices and departure

On the night of September 14, after the president had returned from a foreign trip and just a day before a parliamentary session, Kravchenko released a video statement announcing he had signed suspicion notices against NABU director Semen Kryvonos and a person close to SAPO head Oleksandr Klymenko. It later emerged that by the time the address was published, Kravchenko had already left the country.

According to available information, Kravchenko registered the suspicion against Kryvonos at 23:19 on the night of September 13-14. Around midnight he announced a temporary waiver of his personal state security detail, and at 2:30 a.m. he crossed the border at the Shehyni checkpoint. Kravchenko's wife had already left the country a day earlier, on September 12, traveling through Moldova to Romania.

Observers link the abrupt sequence of events to fears of an upcoming operation targeting Kravchenko himself, as well as information that a tracking marker had been placed on him in the border guard database — similar to the case of former minister Herman Halushchenko, who was detained while attempting to leave the country. Last week NABU and SAPO also conducted searches targeting officials linked to the tax service, which Kravchenko headed before becoming prosecutor general.