November 17, 2025
DIANE FRANCIS
Ukrainians have been fighting a war with Russia for years, and now the country faces a war internally against some of the people who have been entrusted with protecting it. A scandal engulfs President Volodymyr Zelensky and the government. It is not another case of a little post-Soviet graft, but a $100-million kickback scheme involving government insiders, defense suppliers, gold-plated toilets, suitcases of cash, and Russian involvement. On November 11, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) unveiled the crimes. Arrests were made, resignations demanded, and, behind closed doors, NABU has also threatened more disclosures if politicians slow-walk or attempt to cover up or interfere with their work. President Zelensky is not directly implicated, but the rot is inside his house, and answers as well as immediate actions are required. He has pledged that wrongdoers will be punished.
The white collar crime probe was appropriately nicknamed Operation Midas and has rocked Kyiv and allies. (The King Midas myth was about a king whose wish to turn anything he touched to gold turned into a curse that he wanted lifted.) For 15 months, Ukrainian investigators have been amassing evidence through seizures, interrogations, searches, and information gleaned from thousands of hours of taped conversations. The timing couldn’t be worse, given that Russia batters Ukraine’s power grid and pushes forward on the eastern front. Now Ukrainians learn that some members of their political class have been siphoning off money meant to keep the lights on and the missiles operating. Wrote military volunteer Mariia Berlinska: “It hurts to believe that the President’s friends are paying for whores, expensive cars, and spending millions of our money on new villas.”
At least three of the eight accused thus far are former close associates or political allies of Zelensky’s. More heads will roll, and Zelensky remains and considers a plan proposed by Ukrainian opposition parties to create a coalition, or a “government of unity”. These elected politicians have also been meeting with military leaders, allies, and G7 ambassadors to brief them and calm the waters.
Zelensky is also under pressure to collaborate or risk his budget not passing this week and the government falling. Even some of Zelensky’s own party members are upset with the situation, and, as a precaution during the ongoing investigations, the central bank has frozen the financial accounts and credit cards of all the country’s elected politicians and officials. Despite their collective displeasure and disparity, they attempt to cobble together a solution for the nation during a war.
Western allies and donors are alarmed. The White House remained silent initially, but the German chancellor delivered a blunt warning: clean this up immediately or risk losing support. EU officials conceded the scandal “looked really bad,” especially as Kyiv requests tens of billions in new aid. But Lithuania’s finance minister summed up Europe’s dilemma: “Maybe confidence is shaken, but what other option do we have?” Ukraine heroically protects Europe
from Putin, and everyone knows that the continent is next on his hit list. Naturally, the Kremlin also weighed in, and Putin’s spokesman announced that Western taxpayers were “having their money stolen by the Kyiv regime.”
Tragically, corruption plagues most democracies and is difficult to expunge. One of history’s most successful anti-corruption leaders was Lee Kuan Yew, who transformed Singapore from a sleazy port to a world-class nation-state. His oft-quoted advice to defeat corruption was: “Start by putting three of your friends in jail, and people will believe you.” Unfortunately, this didn’t work in Ukraine. In 2019, Zelensky was elected to clean up the country’s corruption. In 2023, one of his biggest backers, oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, was charged with embezzlement and fraud charges for siphoning $2 billion from Ukraine’s largest bank and was jailed in Kyiv. He remains incarcerated, and on November 10, a London court also ordered Kolomoisky and a partner to pay more than $3 billion in damages and costs for the bank heist. Then, on that same day, Ukraine’s corruption watchdogs announced the details of this $100-million kickback scheme, which was allegedly masterminded by Timor Mindich, who had been a business partner of Kolomoisky’s.
For years, Kolomoisky laundered stolen bank deposits in the US by purchasing commercial real estate in Cleveland and Midwest cities. But in 2020, the U.S. Justice Department seized these assets, charged him, and banned him and his family from entering the United States, citing corruption and threats to Ukraine’s democratic institutions. In 2022, President Zelensky stripped him of Ukrainian citizenship, and he has been rotting in a jail cell in Kyiv since 2023.
Meanwhile, Kolomoisky’s former partner, Mindich, was tipped off before he could be arrested and fled by limo across the Polish border. He and another accused figure, businessman Oleksandr Tsukerman, each held Israeli passports, and both are now in Israel, where they are protected from extradition. Operation Midas also uncovered Russian links: The cash-flow kickback chains were run through back offices, shell companies, and networks tied to Ihor Myroniuk, a former aide to an ex-lawmaker, Andriy Derkach, who is now a Russian senator in Moscow and wanted for treason in Ukraine. Stolen money likely made its way to Russia through middlemen connected to Derkach.
The revelations have rattled Ukrainians, military leaders, allies, and Europeans. Worse, two more investigations into alleged graft continue and involve inflated military procurement contracts. Politically, the most likely scenario in the coming weeks is that the proposed political coalition between Zelensky and opposition parties, excluding Julia Tymoshenko’s and another with pro-Russian leaning, will form and stabilize the government. This is the least risky option, but it would politically neuter Zelensky. An election is out of the question while the country remains at war.
The only positive to come from the crisis is that it is obvious to all that Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions work. NABU and SAPO (Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor) spent 15 months tracking the scheme. They executed massive raids, taped hundreds, indicted eight defendants, and uncovered high-level wrongdoing. As a journalist who personally spent years helping anti-corruption fighters in Ukraine, I can attest that this is an incredible accomplishment.
However, it’s disappointing that Zelensky’s government tried this summer to neuter those agencies—attempts abandoned only after mass protests. Had Ukrainians not taken to the streets,
this criminal case “would simply have been closed,” a veteran activist told journalists. Instead, Ukraine now has a rare wartime example of independent bodies confronting entrenched power. As Ukrainian anti-corruption leader Daria Kaleniuk said, NABU’s disclosures are “a success story, a positive sign.”
The weeks ahead are critical. If Zelensky jails more accused insiders, forces resignations, further empowers investigations, and greenlights all prosecutions—friends included—the situation will stabilize. If he is outed or quits, a smooth transition to another elected leader is essential, and fortunately, that is quietly underway among parliamentarians. Whether Ukraine emerges stronger, with newly empowered anti-corruption institutions, or slides toward political fragmentation, depends on what Zelensky and parliament do next.
The explosive findings of fraud and corruption, as well as the London fraud ruling, are more than legal victories – they are the necessary steps to finally dismantle Ukraine’s rotten oligarchic class. Justice will finally catch up with the men who treated a national bank — and the war effort to defeat Russia — like personal cash machines. Severe punishment is appropriate for anyone who has profited from the struggle and misery of the Ukrainian people. So far, the country’s democracy is working to maintain stability and root out evil in the face of a full-blown crisis. But the jury’s out as to whether or not Zelensky will go down in history as an asset or a liability. However, what’s certain is that Ukraine will progress and prevail.