Zelenskyy signs law weakening Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies, prompting protests

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a new law that places two of the country’s leading anti-corruption agencies under the oversight of the Prosecutor General, drawing criticism from international observers and sparking protests in multiple cities.

The legislation, passed earlier on Tuesday by the Ukrainian parliament, grants the Prosecutor General authority over the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). The bill was signed by Zelenskyy hours later.

Protesters took to the streets in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Poltava, and Odessa after the bill passed in parliament, hoping to pressure Zelenskyy not to sign it into law. The demonstrations mark the first large-scale protests in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, according to Faytuks News.

The passage of the bill has raised concern among Western officials and Ukrainian civil society groups, who view it as a rollback of the anti-corruption framework built after the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protests. That revolution, which resulted in the ouster of a pro-Russian government, was followed by the creation of NABU and SAPO to independently investigate high-level corruption, free from political influence.

According to The Kyiv Independent, the Prosecutor General is widely seen as politically dependent, and the new law effectively allows the president’s office to exert direct influence over anti-corruption investigations. The outlet described the change as part of a broader campaign against independent oversight bodies.

On Monday, the day before the vote, security forces carried out coordinated raids on dozens of NABU employees’ homes. NABU’s chief claimed some of the searches were violent, and The Kyiv Independent cited a local report alleging that officers forcibly opened a detective’s eyes to unlock his phone. The searches were reportedly based on a range of charges, including minor traffic incidents and drug accusations.

The Kyiv Independent also noted that recent NABU investigations have targeted members of Zelenskyy’s party and his inner circle. In particular, a close friend of the president and former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov was recently named a suspect in a land corruption case.

The European Commission expressed concern about the new law. “These institutions are crucial to Ukraine’s reform agenda and must operate in an independent way to fight corruption and maintain public trust,” said spokesperson Guillaume Mercier.

“The EU provides significant financial assistance to Ukraine, conditional on progress in transparency, judicial reform, and democratic governance. Ukraine’s accession will require a strong capacity to combat corruption and to ensure institutional resilience,” the spokesperson added, according to Politico Europe.

While public demonstrations are limited under martial law amid the ongoing Russian invasion, the legislation has drawn comparisons to the final actions of the Yanukovych administration, which sparked the 2014 Euromaidan uprising. At that time, efforts to suppress democratic reforms and dismantle accountability mechanisms led to mass mobilizations across the country.