Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers submitted their resignations Wednesday after President Volodymyr Zelensky called for them to step down — as the fallout from a wide-ranging corruption investigation rocked Ukraine’s political establishment and threatened to implicate top government officials and a former business partner of the Ukrainian leader.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced Justice Minister German Galushchenko’s suspension earlier Wednesday, but the president’s call just hours later for Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk to step down went much further. The move is a sign of the severe damage caused from an investigation, announced Monday by Ukraine’s two independent anti-corruption bodies, into an alleged kickback scheme in the nuclear power sector.
Soon after Zelensky’s call, Svyrydenko wrote on Telegram that the two ministers had submitted their resignations, which she would send to parliament for approval.
The nation’s independent anti-corruption bodies announced Monday they were investigating an alleged scheme that netted its perpetrators about $100 million in kickbacks from contracts signed by Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company, Energoatom.
In a post on his official Telegram channel, Zelensky said that Galushchenko and Grynchuk “could not remain in their positions” as a “matter of trust.”
The request for resignations became the only viable path forward, this official said. “I don’t think that it [will cause] serious damage to international assistance, but it puts another question mark on what we are fighting for,” the official said.
“Russia will definitely use it” against Ukraine, the official added.
Posted by John3262005