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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fired a senior aide amid a fresh corruption investigation – one day after a former defence minister warned the country was facing “a crisis of governance” and needed to hold a wartime presidential election.
Iryna Mudra, a presidential deputy chief of staff, was dismissed by decree after multiple reports in Ukrainian media that her house was being searched by officials investigating an alleged money-laundering scheme.
No official reason was given for Mudra’s sacking as Zelenskyy sought to carry on as normal, despite Mykhailo Fedorov’s surprise call for an early presidential election in a video address released late on Tuesday.
The president did not directly address the ousted minister’s accusations or his election demand in his initial public statements, though he did thank Ukraine’s parliament for voting to confirm Fedorov’s replacement, Yevhen Khmara, in the post.
At the heart of Fedorov’s argument were accusations that corruption remained widespread under Zelenskyy and that the president had failed to get a grip. “Corruption is only a symptom. The main problem runs much deeper. We have a systemic crisis of governance,” Fedorov had said.
The removal of Fedorov from his post in July triggered the most significant street protests in Ukraine since the war began.
Fedorov is now considering visiting the US, possibly as soon as next week, in an apparent effort to win over American support. In the past, the US president, Donald Trump, has called for Ukraine to hold elections, though his comments were made at a time when his relationship with Zelenskyy was strained.
Elections have been suspended in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Fedorov became the first major public figure to call for a presidential poll, effectively posing a direct challenge to the sitting president.
“Can Russia effectively be given the right to dictate when Ukrainians can choose their government again? I am convinced that the answer is no,” Fedorov said in a nine-minute video address released on social media late on Tuesday.
Zelenskyy’s term notionally expired in spring 2024, but an election during wartime is prohibited by the constitution, and had anyway been considered by most Ukrainians to be impractical and potentially divisive while Russia continues to attack on a daily basis.
The Nabu anti-corruption agency said it was conducting a special operation to expose what it said was a criminal conspiracy that involved “the participation of high-ranking officials from the office of the president” and several others.
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It released a video saying those involved included a deputy head of the president’s office, a serving MP and a former MP, as well as the CEO and supervisory board head at a state-owned bank, though none were named.
Nabu added that the group was accused of laundering 150m hryvinas (£2.5m) through the state-owned bank in order to post bail in June for the former energy minister Herman Haluschenko, himself facing anti-corruption charges.
Haluschenko is a defendant in the high-profile Midas corruption case, alongside the businessman Timur Mindich, who has fled the country. Mindich is a former associate of the president and former co-owner of the TV production company Kvartal 95, co-founded by Zelenskyy in the years before he went into politics.
Mindich is accused of orchestrating a large-scale corruption scheme that was uncovered last November in which kickbacks were demanded from companies seeking to supply the country’s state-owned nuclear power generator Energoatom.
The scandal damaged Zelenskyy’s credibility. A fortnight later, his then chief aide, Andriy Yermak, resigned after anti-corruption investigators searched his home. He was then arrested in May on suspicion of money laundering. Yermak’s lawyer has dismissed the allegations as “baseless”. Mindich, who fled to Israel, also denies wrongdoing.
Later on Wednesday, Zelenskyy presented 25 certificates giving housing to decorated veterans and their families. The president said Ukraine was a country that honoured its heroes and emphasised it was important to be thankful to its bravest troops.
“Gratitude is what should accompany respect. It must be an integral part of a normal state, a normal society and normal people,” the president said. It was perhaps the closest he had come all day to making a comment of any kind on the crisis.
