Zelenskyy seeks dismissal of prosecutor general as top aide warns scandal damages Ukraine’s image

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has submitted a motion to parliament seeking the dismissal of Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, hours after the president’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, publicly condemned the sudden departure of the top prosecutor abroad as “abnormal” and severely damaging to Ukraine’s international standing.

Budanov, a former head of Defence Intelligence who now leads the Office of the President, broke his usual silence on the matter in a brief statement to Ukrainska Pravda on 14 September. “Unfortunately, I do not have enough time to answer all your questions, so I will be brief: all of this is abnormal and damages Ukraine’s image in the world as much as possible,” he said.

The remark – unusually direct for a senior official – came on the same day that Kravchenko posted a video from abroad outlining corruption allegations against Semen Kryvonos, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). Kravchenko’s decision to release case materials while outside the country, and without prior coordination with the government, has sparked a political firestorm in Kyiv.

Later on 14 September, parliament speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk announced that he had received a motion from Zelenskyy seeking parliament’s consent to dismiss Kravchenko. “The Verkhovna Rada has received a motion from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeking parliament's consent to dismiss Ruslan Kravchenko from the post of prosecutor general,” Stefanchuk said in a statement. Davyd Arakhamiia, head of the ruling Servant of the People faction, confirmed that the relevant parliamentary committee would review the document within hours, with a full vote scheduled for 15 September.

The Kryvonos case

Just before his departure, Kravchenko made public more than 30 pages of a notice of suspicion served on Semen Kryvonos. According to Kravchenko’s social media post, Kryvonos is suspected of document forgery in 2008 (Articles 358.2 and 358.3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), as well as soliciting an unlawful benefit on an especially large scale (Article 368.4). In a separate video posted on his accounts, Kravchenko alleged that Kryvonos was also involved in voter bribery and the fictitious adoption of a child to evade court liability.

Kryvonos has denied the allegations. He previously told a selection commission that a 2008–2009 case against him – closed in 2010 – was a “trumped-up” case stemming from student activism against university administration pressure on voters.

What it means

The timing of Kravchenko’s overseas posting of the suspicion notice – and his subsequent refusal to return – has raised questions about the stability of Ukraine’s anti-corruption architecture. NABU is a key institution in Ukraine’s fight against graft, and any perception that its head is being targeted for political reasons risks undermining Western confidence in Kyiv’s reform commitments.

Budanov’s unusually blunt comment signals that the president’s office views the affair as a serious reputational risk, especially as Ukraine continues to seek military and financial support from international partners. Whether the Rada will vote to dismiss Kravchenko on 15 September remains uncertain, but the motion from Zelenskyy suggests the president wants to contain the damage quickly.

Efforts to reach Kravchenko for comment were not successful; his office did not respond to requests by the time of publication. The prosecutor general’s whereabouts abroad have not been officially confirmed.