More problems for Zelensky: the prosecutor general resigns due to a corruption scandal

BarcelonaThe Kremlin broke the truce promised to Donald Trump's emissaries tonight and returned to bombing Kyiv with missiles, with a toll of 2 dead and 10 injured. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is facing more internal problems. Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko announced his resignation on Monday amidst corruption scandals that are splashing the management of the war and while the crisis over the dismissal of the young Minister of Defense is still simmering.

"I have made this decision for political reasons, fully consciously," said Kravchenko. "I do not want the position of Prosecutor General to be used as an instrument of political confrontation," justified the prosecutor, accused in a corruption case that he denies. The affair, uncovered by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office last week, places senior officials of the Prosecutor General's Office at the center of a plot of call centers dedicated to telephone scams and money laundering. According to the investigation, members of the Prosecutor's Office systematically received bribes in exchange for allowing fraudulent call centers to operate inside and outside the country without sanctions. Through these centers, money was laundered with fraudulent purchases and properties were registered in the names of third parties.

So far, five people have been arrested for their alleged involvement, including the deputy head of the international cooperation department of the Prosecutor General's Office, accused of having laundered more than 89 million hryvnias (2 million dollars). In the recordings published by the office, there is talk of the "boss," whom investigators identify as Kravchenko, who is also accused of a fraudulent renovation of his residence in an elite area of the capital. Images of a safe full of bundles of dollar bills have also been published.

The case is especially sensitive for Zelensky, who in the spring and summer of last year had faced a wave of street protests against his plan to subordinate precisely the anti-corruption agencies to the Prosecutor General's Office. And it is not the only problem for the Ukrainian leader: last week there was a shootout between the internal security services (SBU) and the intelligence services (GRU), with several agents wounded in the center of Kyiv, an episode that Zelensky called "shameful" and which could have been triggered following the arrest by the SBU of a Russian citizen who worked for the Ukrainian military intelligence directorate. Furthermore, the country is still under the shock of the dismissal of the popular Minister of Defense, the young Dmitri Fedorov, who is perceived as an honest politician and who has fought corruption.

Fraudulent call centers, a scourge

According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime, based in Switzerland, call centers dedicated to committing scams employ more than 60,000 people in Ukraine. According to this research center, telephone scam centers have become one of the most sophisticated, lucrative, and widespread forms of organized crime around the world.

"Thanks to information and communication technologies, social engineering techniques, available criminal tools, and money laundering networks, these organizations can scam victims from different countries while remaining deeply rooted in local political, economic, and criminal environments," they warn.