{"id":1259747,"date":"2025-07-14T10:21:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T07:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/harassment-of-anti-corruption-activists-what-bankova-really-wants\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T10:21:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T07:21:06","slug":"harassment-of-anti-corruption-activists-what-bankova-really-wants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/harassment-of-anti-corruption-activists-what-bankova-really-wants\/","title":{"rendered":"Harassment of anti-corruption activists: what Bankova really wants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The case against the head of the Anti-Corruption Center, Vitaliy Shabunin, has no legal basis and is &#8220;pulled by the ears&#8221; &#8211; in this way, Bankova seeks to discredit civil society as a phenomenon, as well as intimidate the opposition.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> This opinion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OJRmKuzk4ek\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was expressed<\/a> on the air of &#8220;Pryamoy&#8221; by Viktor Bobyrenko, an expert from the Bureau of Policy Analysis.<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;Everything is being pulled by the ears. What is he being accused of? That he allegedly drove a car for some time that was transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And he drove, because it was transferred to him in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And those who transferred it confirm it. There are also some attacks that he received money, but at that time everyone received money, regardless of who was seconded where. That is, everything is being pulled by the ears. And they hope to discredit anti-corruption activists. That&#8217;s what the authorities want. And the second is to show that no one is protected,&#8221; Bobyrenko noted.<\/p>\n<p> https:\/\/youtu.be\/OJRmKuzk4ek?t=47<\/p>\n\t\t<aside class=\"shortcode-also\" data-title=\"Read also\" >\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/ukraine-is-being-tested-for-russian-authoritarianism\/\">Stress Test for Freedom: How Ukraine Resists the Pull of Russian Authoritarianism<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\n<p> In addition, he recalled the story of the mobilization of journalist Bohdan Butkevych, who has the status of &#8220;limited fitness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;Before this, there was Bohdan Butkevych, who, when he stretches out his hand, can&#8217;t see his fingers, that&#8217;s how his eyesight is. And now they want to send him to a training center somewhere, drill him for a month there and throw him into an assault company. It&#8217;s clear that this is absurd, that they want to deliberately throw a person to their death in this way. And at the same time, they say, all sorts of Maryan women say, that mobilization is for everyone. No, it&#8217;s selective mobilization&#8230; Why does it turn out that we have 3.8 million conscripts, and we can&#8217;t recruit 20 thousand a month?&#8221; &#8211; the expert is indignant.<\/p>\n<p> According to him, the current government is doing everything possible to discredit civil society and the opposition.<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;If you criticize the authorities, we will come up with anything against you. For example, they even came up with the idea against Poroshenko that somewhere in 2019, they brought him bags of money from Moscow, completely by the ears. That is, at the expense of Shabunin, firstly, they want to discredit civil society as such. And secondly, to show civil society: don&#8217;t be afraid, criticize the authorities &#8211; we are coming after you,&#8221; explains Viktor Bobyrenko.<\/p>\n\t\t<aside class=\"shortcode-also\" data-title=\"Read also\" data-right>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/anti-maidan-tests-the-limits\/\">Anti-Maidan Pushes Boundaries: The Struggle for Ukraine\u2019s Soul<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\n<p> As a reminder, on July 11, the State Bureau of Investigation<a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/u-kerivnyka-tsentru-protydii-koruptsii-provodiat-obshuky-u-chomu-prychyna\/\">conducted searches at the home of Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Center<\/a> . The SBI claims that for a long time he did not appear at his place of duty, received a salary, and used a car intended for the military. Subsequently, SBI officers <a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/dbr-povidomylo-pro-pidozru-antykoruptsioneru-vitaliiu-shabuninu\/\">reported the Ukrainian activist to the police on suspicion<\/a> of evasion of duty and fraud.<\/p>\n<p> The Anti-Corruption Center commented on the searches, stating that <a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/shabunin-pislia-15-hodyn-obshukiv-vlada-zelenskoho-yde-do-avtorytaryzmu-pid-prykryttiam-viyny\/\">Zelensky is building corrupt authoritarianism during martial law<\/a> , and the cases against Shabunin are a show of force to demonstrate that the authorities can do anything to anyone in the country, no matter how absurd it may seem. The CPC team suggests that this could have happened because of criticism of the Office of the President and Andriy Yermak personally.<\/p>\n<p> As the People&#8217;s Deputy from the &#8220;European Solidarity&#8221; Sofia Fedyna stated on the air of &#8220;Pryamoy&#8221;, <a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/shabunin-butkevych-i-opozytsiia-bankova-oholosyla-poliuvannia-na-neuhodnykh-u-styli-rf\/\">the President&#8217;s Office announced a hunt for public activists, the opposition, and military personnel<\/a> who criticize the current government, involving the State Bureau of Investigation in the persecution, which has already turned into &#8220;Bankova&#8217;s tame hyena.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> Also follow <strong>\u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Facebook<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/prm_ua\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Twitter<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/+rtV4dxYu2_cyNjVi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Telegram<\/a> , and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Instagram<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The case against the head of the Anti-Corruption Center, Vitaliy Shabunin, has no legal basis and is &#8220;pulled by the ears&#8221; &#8211; in this way, Bankova seeks to discredit civil society as a phenomenon, as well as intimidate the opposition. This opinion was expressed on the air of &#8220;Pryamoy&#8221; by Viktor Bobyrenko, an expert from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":1231137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76873],"class_list":["post-1259747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1259747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1231137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1259747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1259747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}