NV’s sources believe that the reform of Ukraine’s Economic Security Bureau (ESB) will begin in 3-6 months. However, the Bankova (colloquial term for the President’s Office, after the street in Kyiv it is located on) plans to implement its own approach: to turn the bureau into a superior state body that will even control the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) in the economic component of investigations.
Under the new head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Semen Kryvonos, and his first deputy, Gizo Uglava, the bureau is drifting into the orbit of the President’s Office.
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Ukrainian authorities passed a law to allow officials not to file electronic asset declarations and shut down public access to all previous declarations. Officials will only have to resume submitting asset declarations within three months after the end of the war – which is not coming in the near future. As a result, it is much more difficult and sometimes impossible to identify corruption.
"We are in court not because anyone genuinely suspects us of corruption, but because no one suspects us of corruption," former Naftogaz CEO tells Newsweek.