Fired Ukrainian defense minister demands Zelensky answer questions about corruption

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told the BBC that President Volodymyr Zelensky is obligated to publicly answer questions about corruption in his government.

The interview was published on Sunday and further deepened the political crisis that has shaken Ukraine’s military leadership in recent weeks.

Fedorov’s statements were prompted by an investigation announced on August 19 by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). According to investigators, associates of the president used Sense Bank — a nationalized former Russian bank — to launder approximately 150 million hryvnias (around €2.9 million) in order to post bail for former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko. Halushchenko himself is a key figure in a kickback scheme worth approximately €85.5 million at the state nuclear company Energoatom.

“Let him answer that question himself… It is his duty to tell all of us whether he knew about all of this or not,” Fedorov said, while stressing that he did not wish to speculate and had no evidence of Zelensky’s personal involvement in the corruption.

On that same day, August 19, Iryna Mudra, deputy head of the Presidential Office, was dismissed over alleged involvement in the scheme. The dismissal came after anti-corruption investigators searched her home. According to documents obtained by the Kyiv Independent, the scheme had been in preparation for several years: Mudra had sought to place loyalists on Sense Bank’s supervisory board following its nationalization in 2023. Zelensky is not personally implicated in the case and denies any connection to the violations uncovered.

This scandal is the third major corruption case linked to Zelensky’s inner circle in the past year, following the arrest in May of former Presidential Office chief Andriy Yermak on suspicion of involvement in the Energoatom kickback scheme.

Fedorov himself, who is 35, was dismissed as defense minister last month following an alleged conflict with the commander of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. After his removal, he called for wartime elections, saying that “democracy must not be held hostage by Putin.” Weekly protests in Kyiv demanding his reinstatement ended on Wednesday after his successor was confirmed.

A spokesperson for Zelensky pushed back against Fedorov, telling the BBC: “Since the former minister was part of every government since 2019, it is strange to hear him speak about this as if these were somehow different governments that he was not part of.” On Sunday, Zelensky himself said that holding elections during wartime carried too great a risk, calling them “a tsunami for the nation capable of splitting Ukraine.”

Beyond the corruption issue, Fedorov warned that corruption continues to undermine the combat effectiveness of Ukrainian troops at the front, and criticized bureaucratic delays in weapons deliveries from the United Kingdom and other allies. He called for funding to be directed toward the production of Ukrainian drones rather than the repair of outdated equipment, and confirmed plans to visit the United States in the coming weeks to meet with Elon Musk — with the aim of expanding Starlink satellite coverage to Russian airspace.