“Out of fear of persecution by the authorities, informants refuse to cooperate with NABU, and detectives stop pursuing cases”, – says head of SAPO

Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), Oleksandr Klymenko, gave an interview to the Western press ahead of the Verkhovna Rada vote on restoring the powers of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies.

In the interview, he stated that although the United States had been the primary supporter of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Washington’s interest has now “significantly declined” — which, according to him, is “one of the reasons this attack became possible.”

Klymenko made these comments in an interview with The Times.

In his view, the main goal of what he describes as a “massive, deliberately planned attack by all law enforcement bodies on the anti-corruption system” is “to gain control over all our investigations — to know what we are investigating, where, and at what stage… in order to protect individuals from criminal liability.”

The Times characterizes the current situation as a “decision by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky” and a sign of his “drift away from democracy,” although the president has attempted to shift responsibility onto the parliament (Rada).

At the same time, Klymenko predicts that even if the agencies’ powers are restored, pressure on anti-corruption officials will persist, because “no one has abandoned their plans to obstruct our work.”

He claims that as a result of the government’s actions, “one NABU detective has already refused to investigate a sensitive case for fear of retaliation,” and “informants have stopped cooperating with us out of fear that their identities may be exposed.”