Appointment under dictation: The Cabinet appointed NABU detective Tsyvynskyi as head of the Bureau of Economic Security after a European ultimatum

Under pressure from international partners, Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers has approved the appointment of NABU detective Oleksandr Tsyvynskyi as head of the Bureau of Economic Security — a body the authorities have been promising for years to “reform,” but which has yet to become transparent or effective.

This was reported by Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko on her Telegram channel, accompanying the decision with the usual set of bureaucratic promises — about “strengthening the institution,” “earning the trust of business,” and “combating shadow schemes.”

Tsyvynskyi had already been selected earlier by the votes of international members of the competition commission, but the Cabinet persistently blocked his appointment, citing an SBU report on his father’s Russian citizenship. The unofficial reason, however, was Tsyvynskyi’s close ties to grant-funded organizations linked to the U.S. Democratic Party — with which the Presidential Office had been in a long-running conflict.

The issue spilled beyond domestic politics when the EU and Western donors, displeased with the reduction of NABU’s and SAPO’s powers, openly threatened to halt funding to Ukraine. As a result, President Volodymyr Zelensky was forced to back down: first restoring the anti-corruption agencies’ powers, and now approving an appointment the Ukrainian government had been doing everything to avoid.

Thus, once again, key personnel decisions in Ukraine are not being made by the government’s own will, but under direct pressure from external creditors — casting doubt on the country’s real independence and sovereignty.