Ukrainian Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Svitlana Vasylivna Hrynchuk talks to media on strategic projects on raw materials in third countries and overseas territories in the Berlaymont, the European Union Commission headquarter, on June 4, 2025, in Brussels, Belgium. (Thierry Monasse / Getty Images)
By Joe Saunders November 14, 2025 at 6:23am
A corruption probe in Ukraine has cost two cabinet ministers their jobs — and could cost the government a lot more in terms of credibility.
According to the Associated Press, a scandal involving up to $100 million in kickbacks, including deals around the state-owned nuclear energy company, has sparked the forced resignations of the country’s justice minister and energy minister.
And a close business associate of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could be implicated, according to the outlet.
The allegations — even in a system with a reputation for endemic corruption — are shocking in a nation that’s at war for its survival against a Russian invasion that started in 2022.
According to the Associated Press, a 15-month investigation by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau found that the suspects — who were unidentified — had cooked up schemes to use the energy company Energoatem as a source of kickback money, even to the point of exposing its assets to the Russian military.
And they captured evidence in more than 1,000 hours of wiretapping.
“In the tapes from NABU, two discussions involved delays to building defensive fortifications for energy sites and waiting for a more profitable alternative before shielding them from Russian attacks,” the Associated Press reported.
“The talk mentioned giving contracts to build defensive protections to a known company, and later to increase kickbacks up to 15%.”
Five suspects have been detained, and seven more are linked to the corruption schemes.
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Neither now-former Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko nor now-former Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk were named as suspects in the report. But Zelenskyy had called for them to step down.
In addition, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said the country’s cabinet had submitted proposals for sanctions on a business associate of Zelenskyy himself, Timur Mindich.
Mindich is a co-owner of Kvartal 95, an entertainment production company Zelenskyy founded in 2003 (long before Zelenskyy went into politics).
Mindich also has connections to a Ukrainian drone manufacturer called Fire Point, which “has risen to prominence by securing government contracts,” the Associated Press reported.
“NABU investigated the company over concerns it misled the government on weapons prices,” the outlet added.
In a video posted to social media after the story exploded, Zelenskyy called the scandal “absolutely unacceptable,” according to Reuters.
It might be “unacceptable,” but it’s not new. Ukraine has a corruption problem going back at least to the early days of its independence from the former Soviet Union.
And for Americans, news about corruption allegations in Ukraine is a recurring pattern. During the Obama administration, then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter scored a lucrative seat on the board of the Ukrainian company Burisma for little more than his last name and his perceived influence with his father.
Biden himself later bragged about getting a Ukraine prosecutor fired — a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
It was President Donald Trump’s insistence that potential Biden corruption be investigated by Kyiv that prompted the first impeachment attempt by House Democrats led by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In 2023, a lengthy Time magazine report described a nation where government corruption was a way of life. “People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow,” as one Zelenskyy adviser put it.
In July, Zelenskyy himself faced what amounted to a public rebellion over his efforts to curtail corruption investigations.
The scandal is already rocking Zelenskyy’s government as the allegations promote suspicion at home and abroad that the Kyiv government cannot be trusted.
“Internally this scandal will be used to undermine unity and stability within the country. Externally, our enemies will use it as an argument to stop aid to Ukraine,” one lawmaker who supports Zelenskyy, Oleksandr Merezhko, told the Associated Press.
“It looks really bad in the eyes of our European and American partners. While Russians destroy our power grid and people have to endure blackouts, someone at the top was stealing money during the war.”
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
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