Volodymyr Zelenskyy faces $100 million corruption scandal that has rocked Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s top military commander said Thursday he visited troops holding the front line in a key eastern city besieged by Russian forces, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy grappled with the fallout from a corruption scandal that has engulfed his administration.

After Zelenskyy’s justice and energy ministers resigned on Wednesday amid the investigation into alleged bribery in the energy sector, the government fired the vice president of Energoatom, the state nuclear energy company that investigators believe is at the center of the bribery scheme.

The heads of Energoatom’s financial, legal and procurement departments and a consultant to Energoatom’s president were also fired in the cleanup, Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said late Wednesday.

A kyiv court has begun hearing evidence from anti-corruption watchdogs whose 15-month investigation, including 1,000 hours of wiretapping, arrested five people and implicated seven others in the scheme that allegedly netted around $100 million.

Tymur Mindich, co-owner of Zelenskyy’s Kvartal 95 media production company, is the alleged mastermind of the conspiracy. His whereabouts are unknown.

The investigation has raised questions about what the country’s top officials knew about the plan. It has also stirred memories of Zelenskyy’s attempt last summer to limit Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs. He backed down after widespread street protests in Ukraine and pressure from the European Union, which has pressed the country to address entrenched corruption.

Pavlo Bahmut/Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images

As Ukrainians expressed anger and disbelief at the unfolding scandal, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would disburse a 6 billion euro ($7 billion) loan to Ukraine on Thursday and promised more money for kyiv.

“We will cover Ukraine’s financial needs for the next two years,” he said in a speech to the European Parliament.

The EU and other foreign partners have poured money into Ukraine’s energy sector. Russia has relentlessly bombed the power grid, which requires repeated repairs.

The EU is studying how to get more money for Ukraine, whether by seizing frozen Russian assets, raising funds in capital markets or having some of the 27 EU countries raise the money themselves.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “believes he can outlast us” in the battle for Ukraine’s future, nearly four years after Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor, von der Leyen said.

“And this is a clear miscalculation,” he said. “Therefore, now is the time to come, with new impetus, to unblock Putin’s cynical attempt to buy time and bring it to the negotiating table.”

Meanwhile, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top military commander, visited units fighting to control Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region and coordinated operations in person, he said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukrainian troops are locked in street battles with Russian forces in the city and are fighting to avoid being encircled by a larger Russian force as Russia’s war of attrition slowly advances across the countryside.

Syrskyi said the key objectives are to regain control of certain areas of the city, as well as protect logistics routes and create new ones so that troops can be supplied and the wounded evacuated.

“There is no question of Russian control over the city of Pokrovsk or of an operational encirclement of the Ukrainian defense forces in the area,” Syrskyi said.

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Sam McNeil contributed to this report from Brussels.

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