Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies announced Wednesday that they are investigating senior officials in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, a day after the country’s recently fired defense minister called for national elections despite the ongoing fight against Russia’s invasion. The political drama was an unwelcome distraction for Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s war with its bigger neighbor extends into its fifth year. Investigators are conducting an operation to expose a criminal organization allegedly led by a sitting and a former lawmaker, involving senior officials from the presidential office and other individuals, according to a joint statement from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
Further details would be released later, the agencies said in a joint statement. The revelation brought another test of Zelenskyy’s political resilience. Last year, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak resigned and was later named as a suspect in a major graft probe in the biggest threat to Zelenskyy’s government since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Zelenskyy is already under pressure over his firing last month of defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, one of the longest-standing members of his team and a close ally since he helped Zelenskyy win the 2019 presidential election. Zelenskyy, seeking to reconcile tensions between the defense ministry's young and tech-savvy innovators and Ukraine's seasoned, Soviet-trained battlefield leaders, risked angering both sides by reshuffling his wartime leadership. He ousted both Fedorov, whose changes to military procurement aimed to stamp out corruption, and commander-in-chief Gen.
The move sparked days of street protests in support of Fedorov. For Zelenskyy, it was the second time in a year that a wartime decision triggered a strong public backlash, after he moved in mid-2025 to curb the powers of anti-corruption agencies. Fedorov, in a video address posted to YouTube late Tuesday, called for elections to be held in Ukraine in a bombshell statement that appeared to directly confront Zelenskyy, who says a ballot can't be held under the martial law that is currently in place due to the war.
He said Ukraine is facing a systemic crisis in how it is governed, arguing that the current system is oriented toward protecting itself and resisting change. He also condemned corruption among officials without naming anyone, saying it had weakened Ukraine’s ability to fight the war. Zelenskyy’s office did not immediately comment on Fedorov’s address.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has balked at negotiating a peace deal directly with Zelenskyy, says the Ukrainian president is an illegitimate leader because his term expired in 2024. Fedorov published his speech hours after Ukraine’s Parliament received a submission from Zelenskyy nominating Yevhenii Khmara as the new defense minister. Lawmakers were due to debate the president's candidate on Wednesday.
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