{"id":1319957,"date":"2025-11-13T14:30:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T12:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/nabu-and-sapo-got-close-to-zelensky-western-media\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T09:53:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T07:53:35","slug":"nabu-and-sapo-got-close-to-zelensky-western-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/nabu-and-sapo-got-close-to-zelensky-western-media\/","title":{"rendered":"NABU and SAPO got close to Zelensky \u2013 Western media"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office have gotten close to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky – this is stated in the article “A Friend of Kolomoisky and Zelensky: Who is Timur Mindych?”, published<\/a> on the Deutsche Welle website.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cGossips and insider information that have been circulating among anti-corruption activists in Ukraine for the past six months were finally confirmed on Monday, November 10: the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) arrived in the morning at an elite high-rise building on the outskirts of Mariinsky Park, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lived shortly before the full-scale invasion. Moreover, the searches took place in an apartment where he had visited more than once and even celebrated his birthday \u2014 in the apartment of his friend and longtime business partner Timur Mindich,\u201d the publication says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe 15-month investigation into the activities of a criminal organization that allegedly formed around NNEGC Energoatom, the state-owned company that manages all Ukrainian nuclear power plants, led law enforcement officers to the residence of the president\u2019s friend. Law enforcement officers claim to have uncovered a shadowy scheme for managing Energoatom by so-called \u201coverseers\u201d \u2014 businessmen and officials who had no formal authority in the company,\u201d DW notes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs the war progressed, Timur Mindich\u2019s influence grew before our eyes. According to journalists, the former business partner repeatedly asked the president to appoint his prot\u00e9g\u00e9s to government positions, in particular, at one time he advised him to take the now former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov into the team. Mindich\u2019s name had already surfaced in energy corruption scandals in 2025 \u2014 in June, the NABU and the SAPO detained his relative Leonid Mindich while trying to leave the country. He was accused of organizing the theft of 12.5 million hryvnias from the purchase of transformers for the Kharkivoblenergo company. The court took Leonid Mindich into custody, and he was later released on bail of eight million hryvnias,\u201d DW recalled.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, all this may turn out to be insignificant compared to the probable interest in the largest Ukrainian manufacturer of long-range drones and Flamingo missiles, Fire Point, which earned 4.3 billion hryvnias on defense orders in 2024. The NABU is allegedly studying the company’s connection with Timur Mindich as part of an investigation into allegedly inflated prices in state contracts for the purchase of drones, the Kyiv Independent claimed in late August, citing law enforcement sources. There is no obvious control relationship between Fire Point and Timur Mindich. However, the nominal owner, Yegor Skaliga, does not look much like a profile defense investor either – he worked in the film industry as a location manager for filming for many years, and his other company, Fire Point, collaborated, in particular, with the \u201cKvartal 95 Studio,\u201d the journalists recalled.<\/span><\/p>\n

Owen Matthews, deputy editor of The Spectator,<\/span>notes<\/span><\/a> in his column \u201cThe Scandal That Could Bring Down Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u201d that the president of Ukraine will inevitably face serious questions as his close political and business associates come under suspicion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmong the treasures linked to prominent Ukrainian businessman Timur Mindich are a solid gold toilet and closets filled with bags of 200-euro bills, according to an investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. Mindich has large businesses in real estate, fertilizers, banking and diamond trading, but is best known as a longtime co-owner of Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s television production company, Kvartal 95. The NABU\u2019s 15-month investigation into what it calls \u201chigh-level\u201d corruption at the top of Ukraine\u2019s political elite is likely to have significant implications for Zelensky\u2019s political future,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cZelensky himself has publicly supported the fight against corruption, telling citizens in his evening address that \u201cthere must be convictions\u201d and urging government officials to \u201cwork together with NABU and law enforcement agencies.\u201d But Zelensky will inevitably face serious questions as his close political and business associates come under suspicion,\u201d Owen Matthews is convinced.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is also highly suspicious that just four months ago, Zelenskyy attempted to place the NABU and SAPO under direct government control by pushing through hastily drafted legislation that abolished the operational independence of the agencies. Zelenskyy\u2019s move shocked Ukraine\u2019s international allies and sparked large-scale street demonstrations in central Kyiv, the first public protests against the government since the war began. Under intense behind-the-scenes pressure from Brussels and Washington, as well as the Kyiv street, Zelenskyy eventually backed down. The stalled NABU and SAPO investigations continued,\u201d the author added.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor now, the full extent of the NABU investigation remains officially confidential. But a series of recent reports, including in the New York Times, suggest that corruption runs deep in the country and involves many figures associated with Zelensky and Kvartal 95. Questions are being raised about how Fire Point, the casting agency for Zelensky\u2019s films before the war, obtained multimillion-dollar government contracts to produce drones for the Ukrainian army. Fire Point, which has not been charged, also produces the recently developed Flamingo long-range cruise missile,\u201d the article says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Politico, in its article \u201cThe $100 Million Plot That\u2019s Shaking Zelensky: Explaining Ukraine\u2019s Corruption Scandal,\u201d<\/span> notes<\/span><\/a> that the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency\u2019s investigation into some of Zelensky\u2019s close associates comes amid power outages in Ukrainians caused by Russian bombings, even as the state has said it has spent tens of millions of euros to protect energy infrastructure from drones and missiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOleksiy Chernyshov, a former deputy prime minister of Ukraine and a close associate of Zelensky, was identified in NABU records under the codename \u201cChe Guevara.\u201d NABU accused him of illicit enrichment, alleging that he received about $1.2 million and almost \u20ac100,000 through a money laundering network,\u201d the article says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Politico also notes that NABU and SAPO are actually conducting at least two major investigations: a new one focused on Energoatom, and another on an alleged corruption offense related to inflated military procurement contracts, and new searches of the Ministry of Defense are expected in the coming days.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also follow \u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a> , Twitter<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> , and Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office have gotten close to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky – this is stated in the article “A Friend of Kolomoisky and Zelensky: Who is Timur Mindych?”, published on the Deutsche Welle website. \u201cGossips and insider information that have been circulating among anti-corruption […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":1299501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,76873,76875],"class_list":["post-1319957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bez-kategoriyi","category-events","category-other-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319957","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\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1343265,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319957\/revisions\/1343265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1299501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}