Kravchenko resigns: what it means for Zelensky’s political position

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko submitted his resignation late in the evening amid a NABU investigation into the “Carthage” case — even though earlier in the day he had stated he had no intention of stepping down, as he was not involved in any unlawful activity.

According to media reports, Kravchenko made the decision to leave after a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky and the head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, David Arakhamia.

The position of prosecutor general carries fundamental political significance for two reasons. First, it is the control center for all law enforcement agencies under the president’s authority — the State Bureau of Investigations, the SBU, and the police: investigators at these agencies cannot take a step without coordinating with the supervising prosecutor, known in Ukrainian shorthand as the “protsker” (from the Ukrainian “protsesualny kerivnyk”). Second, only the prosecutor general has the authority to issue suspicion notices to members of parliament. Thus, for NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP), the path to mass delivery of suspicion notices to leaders of the Servant of the People faction — including Arakhamia — and its key deputies, with the aim of pulling the Rada majority out from under the president’s control, ran essentially through the removal of Kravchenko, a prosecutor fully loyal to Bankova.

Nevertheless, the resignation has not yet taken effect: it must be approved by the Verkhovna Rada, and until the vote Kravchenko remains head of the office. If the deputies vote for his departure, the first deputy will become acting prosecutor general. That position is currently held by Maria Vdovychenko, who is also fully loyal to Bankova — her premises were also searched in the Carthage case. At the same time, before Kravchenko actually leaves, Zelensky can appoint any figure he needs as first deputy — for example, he could return Oleksiy Khomenko to the post, who in 2024–2025 already served as acting prosecutor general for more than seven months following the resignation of Andriy Kostin and before Kravchenko’s appointment.

The precedent of Kravchenko’s resignation — which, unlike the case of Iryna Mudra, did not even require serving him a suspicion notice — could have an extremely demoralizing effect on the president’s entire law enforcement vertical. Publications close to NABU are already reporting that the threads of the Carthage case, concerning the protection of call centers, lead to other law enforcement agencies as well — primarily the SBU. The question of whether the future head of the Office of the Prosecutor General and the leaders of other security agencies will remain loyal to Bankova or begin to orient themselves toward the “NABU line” — including when it comes to issuing suspicion notices to MPs — remains open. Before everyone’s eyes is the example of former Deputy Head of the Office of the President Mudra, who has so far been unable to raise approximately €387,000 in bail to secure her release from pre-trial detention.

In these circumstances, Zelensky faces an increasingly acute choice between two strategies. The first is to accept the Kachka-Kos legislative package, which removes law enforcement agencies from presidential control and effectively turns him into a “British monarch” with no real powers. The second is to strike back against the anti-corruption bodies and their support network through criminal cases and National Security and Defense Council sanctions. Ukrayinska Pravda, the outlet of Tomáš Fiala, which works in close coordination with NABU, reported that the authorities are already preparing such a strike in the near future. The authors of the piece note that this information should be treated with caution given the outlet’s editorial position: it may be part of an information war against Zelensky. Nevertheless, if Bankova is genuinely considering a counterattack on NABU and SAP — rumors of which have been circulating for some time — the window for launching it is closing fast: a few more cases like Carthage or Forrest Gump, with arrests and resignations, and the president will simply have no one left to carry out that strike.