Odesa residents protest over law on subordination of NABU to Prosecutor General's Office

A group of Odesa residents staged a protest in the city center against a draft law that would eliminate the independence of the anti-corruption bodies of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.

Similar actions are also taking place in Kyiv and Lviv, according to Suspilne.

The protesters insist that the new draft law passed by the Verkhovna Rada on July 22 will return Ukraine to the times of the Yanukovych regime, namely, revive the level of corruption that existed in the country then.

"What is happening now is that we are returning to the corruption schemes that existed 10 years ago, as it was under Yanukovych. And I am not satisfied with this. In 2014, I was 14 and could not go to protests, but now I am an adult and I can safely defend the rights of Ukrainian citizens," said one of the participants.

Meanwhile, the new Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yulia Sviredenko, said that the problem of corruption is exaggerated in Ukrainian society. In particular, in an interview with Bloomberg, she referred to the results of a survey allegedly conducted among Ukrainians, which indicated that although the vast majority believed bribery was common, far fewer people had encountered it.

Currently, the bill must be signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to become law, but a number of MPs and protesters have called on the president not to do so.

The draft law No. 12414 in question was previously criticized by Transparency International as an attempt to deprive the NABU and the SAPO of their independence.

The day before, officers of the Security Service of Ukraine and the Prosecutor General's Office detained Ruslan Magamedrasulov, one of the heads of interregional departments of detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, on suspicion of doing business in the Russian Federation.

According to the investigation, he acted as an intermediary in the sale of his father's batches of industrial hemp to the Russian Federation (Republic of Dagestan). The SBU is also checking information about Ruslan Magamedrasulov's contacts with Russian special services and the transfer of secret information to them, in particular, about planned investigative actions.

According to the investigation, this high-ranking official of the Bureau has maintained close contact with the fugitive MP from the banned OPFL party, Fedir Khrystenko, who is associated with the Russian special services and, as the investigation has established, has a significant influence on the NABU's activities.

Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement supported amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), according to which the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) may become dependent on the decisions of the Prosecutor General. Currently, these are independent anti-corruption institutions.

Кирило Бойко