Why did Ukraine's prosecutor general resign, and who will replace him?

October 24, 2024

By Ukraine

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The formal reason for Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin's resignation on Oct. 22 was the ongoing major corruption scandal involving hundreds of prosecutors who obtained disability benefits, including financial support, the ability to evade the military draft and leave the country at will.

A crucial question is whether Kostin's resignation will solve the problem of fake disability documents and corruption at the prosecutor's office in general and whether his replacement will be any better.

Some anti-corruption activists see him as a scapegoat blamed for the scandal.

"The resignation was supposed to ease public tension," Olena Shcherban, a deputy executive director at the Kyiv-based NGO Anti-Corruption Action Center, told the Kyiv Independent. "But will it solve the problem? We are still very far from that."

"The resignation was supposed to ease public tension. But will it solve the problem? We are still very far from that."

A number of experts have also mentioned other reasons that might have led to Kostin's dismissal, apart from the ongoing scandal.

Although Kostin was appointed to the job as a loyalist of President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2022, the President's Office could have been unhappy with the prosecutor's decision to greenlight corruption cases against lawmakers from the president's party, according to Shcherban and Yury Nikolov, an investigative journalist who has exposed top-level corruption.

The President's Office has also been reportedly unhappy with Kostin's frequent trips abroad, according to Oleksandr Lemenov, head of anti-corruption watchdog StateWatch.

Lemenov and Nikolov also said, citing their sources, that Kostin had allegedly been wanting to resign himself.

“I think he was on his way out already and was hoping to get an ambassadorial post in The Hague," a source familiar with decision-making in Zelensky’s office told the Kyiv Independent.

Overall, the experts polled by the Kyiv Independent see Kostin's track record as mixed.

On the one hand, they say he has not scored any great achievements, and there were no efforts to reform the corrupt prosecutor's office.

On the other hand, Kostin did not block or sabotage any high-profile cases, they argue.

Kostin's spokesperson, Nadiya Maksimets, told the Kyiv Independent he was not immediately available for comment. The President's Office did not respond to requests for comment.

`Reasons for resignation`

Kostin's resignation came amid reports of prosecutors illegally obtaining disability status en masse.

Kostin said on Oct. 20 that only in Khmelnytskyi Oblast 61 prosecutors had obtained disability certificates.

Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Head Vasyl Maliuk said on Oct. 22 that the SBU had exposed corruption schemes at medical examination commissions in 2024, resulting in the cancellation of 4,106 fake disability status certificates.

Kostin submitted his resignation after a National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) meeting chaired by Zelensky.

During the meeting, the "immoral situation" with the fake disabilities of prosecutors was discussed, and "many shameful facts of abuse" were revealed, according to Kostin.

"I am grateful to the president of Ukraine and Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada for their trust. But in this situation, I believe it is right for me to resign from the post of prosecutor general," he said.

Kostin's resignation has yet to be approved by the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament.

Shcherban from the Anti-Corruption Action Center said that Kostin had become a scapegoat blamed by the authorities for the scandal with fake disability certificates.

Kostin had become a scapegoat blamed by the authorities for the scandal with fake disability certificates.

She said that the problem of prosecutors' involvement in such corrupt practices had existed long before Kostin.

"It's a result of systemic problems and a lack of the desire to reform the prosecutor's office," she told the Kyiv Independent. "The reform of the prosecutor's office has failed."

Shcherban added that previous efforts under former Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka to vet prosecutors and fire those who did not meet integrity and professionalism standards stalled after he was fired in 2020.

Nikolov, who has investigated corruption in the defense ministry and law enforcement, dismissed the decision to blame Kostin as "populism."

"Kostin is not the cause of the problem," he told the Kyiv Independent.

Nikolov believes the cause is the corrupt system, and Kostin, however, should have been tasked with reforming the prosecutor's office and firing corrupt prosecutors instead of evading this responsibility.

Another reason for Kostin's resignation could have been that Kostin didn't obstruct corruption investigations, even against those who were close to the President's Office.

The President's Office could have been unhappy with Kostin authorizing charges for lawmakers from Zelensky's Servant of the People party brought by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Shcherban said.

Nikolov also said that, according to his sources, Kostin had seldom communicated with the President's Office, and there had been some tension between him and the President's Office.

The Kyiv Independent couldn't independently verify this claim.

In August, Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, accused the President's Office of allowing pro-government lawmaker Artem Dmytryk to flee abroad before being charged with beating a law enforcement officer and a soldier.

Another Servant of the People lawmaker, Andriy Odarchenko, fled Ukraine through Zakarpattia Oblast in September before being charged with bribery. Odarchenko has admitted being friends with Viktor Mykyta, former governor of Zakarpattia Oblast and currently a deputy head of the President's Office.

The blame had been placed on the prosecutor general for allowing this to happen.

Another source of tension between Kostin and the President's Office could have been his frequent trips abroad, according to Lemenov.

Kostin spent 103 days on foreign business trips in 2023, the Ukrainska Pravda news outlet reported in April, citing Kostin's asset declaration, law enforcement sources, and a response to an official request by lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko.

He spent half of the trips in the U.S., where his wife lives, according to the news outlet.

`Kostin's track record`

Anti-corruption activists say Kostin's track record as prosecutor general remains mixed.

"I don't see either great achievements or great failures (under Kostin)," Shcherban said.

The upside is that Kostin did not block NABU cases, in contrast with his predecessor Iryna Venediktova, according to Shcherban and Nikolov. Shcherban said "Kostin worried about his reputation among international partners."

Venediktova has denied the accusations of sabotage.

One of the achievements under Kostin that the Prosecutor General's Office itself has highlighted is the investigation of Russian war crimes.

Yury Belousov, head of the war crimes department at the Prosecutor General's Office, said in early October that 708 Russian soldiers had been charged with war crimes since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, and 131 out of them had been convicted.

Lemenov was more skeptical, arguing that "anyone would be considered more effective if compared with Venediktova." He called Kostin a "hidden or shadow prosecutor" due to his alleged inactivity.

"Two years and three months have passed (since Kostin was appointed as prosecutor general)," Lemenov said. "Whether he was there or not makes no difference."

Lemenov added that he had been appointed to several vetting commissions by Kostin but there had been no efforts by the prosecutor general to reform or fix Ukraine's stagnant prosecution.

Before being appointed as prosecutor general, Kostin applied for the job of the chief anti-corruption prosecutor in 2021-2022.

Several civic watchdogs, including the Anti-Corruption Action Center, AutoMaidan, Dejure, and Transparency International, concluded then that Kostin did not meet ethics and integrity standards and violated the principle of political neutrality. The watchdogs saw him as being too close to Zelensky and his administration.

Eventually he was vetoed by a panel including international experts and did not get the job.

The panel based its veto on the accusations of nepotism and alleged violations in Kostin's asset declarations. He denied the accusations of wrongdoing.

Kostin has also been criticized for visiting Russian-occupied Crimea in 2015 and 2018. He argued that he had visited a doctor on the occupied peninsula.

`No clear successor yet`

Regardless of Kostin's track record, the "crucial question is who will replace him," Shcherban said.

There is a high likelihood that his successor will be worse and less independent than Kostin, she added.

There is a high likelihood that his successor will be worse and less independent than Kostin.

Nikolov said that his resignation would only make sense if Kostin were replaced with an effective prosecutor general who would reform the prosecutor's office and fire those responsible for violations.

Potential candidates allegedly being considered as a replacement for Kostin include Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper and Kyiv Oblast Governor Ruslan Kravchenko, according to Shcherban and Lemenov.

NV, a Ukrainian media outlet, also reported on Oct. 23, citing their sources at the Prosecutor General's Office and the Verkhovna Rada, that Kravchenko could replace Kostin.

Shcherban said that Kravchenko and Kiper are seen as loyalists of the President's Office, and Kiper has a controversial reputation.

Kiper has been involved in a corruption scandal following the publication of an investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Schemes project on Oct. 23. Alleged protégés and business partners of Kiper have acquired assets belonging to a sanctioned Russian businessman, Schemes reported.

Kiper denied having business links to them.

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