Ukrainian parliament approves resignation of Prosecutor General Kostin
Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted on Oct. 29 to approve the resignation of Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin, lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko said on his Telegram channel.
Kostin's resignation was supported by 255 members of parliament, according to Honcharenko.
The Ukrainian government has not yet decided on a replacement for Kostin.
Potential candidates allegedly being considered as a replacement for Kostin include Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper and Kyiv Oblast Governor Ruslan Kravchenko, Olena Shcherban, a deputy executive director at the Kyiv-based NGO Anti-Corruption Action Center, told the Kyiv Independent.
The chief prosecutor submitted his resignation on Oct. 22 following a National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) meeting headed by President Volodymyr Zelensky. The session addressed the "immoral situation" surrounding the fake disabilities of prosecutors, and "many shameful facts of abuse" were revealed, according to Kostin.
Following the meeting, Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) head Vasyl Maliuk said that his agency had exposed corruption schemes at medical examination commissions, resulting in the cancellation of 4,106 fake disability status certificates.
Maliuk added that 64 officials at medical examination commissions have been charged with crimes, while another nine suspects had been convicted.
Medical examination commissions (MSEK) are bodies tasked with determining the severity of a disability. Corruption schemes at medical examination commissions linked to draft evasion have been reported in Rivne, Mykolaiv, Khmelnytskyi, and Kharkiv oblasts.
Kostin has served as prosecutor general since July 28, 2022, replacing Iryna Venediktova.
Prior to that, he was a member of parliament from 2019 to 2022 and headed the legal policy committee.
From 2012 to 2019, Kostin was a deputy chairman of the Odesa Oblast Bar Association. He has been a member of the International Bar Association since 2000.
Oleg Sukhov
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