Viktor Orbán's decisive defeat in the Hungarian elections will likely enable the unlocking of €90 billion in EU funding for Ukraine.
However, the question remains: will this money be subject to reform conditionality? After all, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government are insisting that financial assistance to Ukraine be provided unconditionally.
At the same time, the attack on anti-corruption bodies in the summer of 2025 undermined the EU's confidence in Zelenskyy and cast doubt on his genuine commitment to fighting corruption and ensuring the justice the Ukrainian people demand.
Reforms of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies have become central to the so-called "Kachka-Kos plan" — an agreed set of priority measures essential to further progress toward EU membership. The plan was announced in November last year as an effort to restore trust. Although the Ukrainian authorities were given the entire 2026 to implement these measures, in the first three months of the year, Zelenskyy's administration has so far failed to implement even one of the 10 items in good faith.
Such stagnation would give Brussels yet another reason to tie Ukraine's funding to specific reforms from the very same Kachka–Kos plan.
The most contentious issue of these reforms is the procedure for selecting and dismissing the heads of law enforcement and judicial institutions. Competitive selection processes and the role of international experts could become a major stumbling block for Zelenskyy on the path toward European integration and securing EU financial support. Sooner or later, he will have to cede part of his unlimited authority over the security apparatus.
Among the EU's key demands are revising the procedure for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General, as well as rebooting the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). The current heads of these two institutions, Ruslan Kravchenko and Oleksii Sukhachov, dutifully played the roles assigned to them by the Office of the President (OP) in the July attack on NABU and SAPO.
Brussels understands this well and therefore expects the procedure for appointing senior officials to be reformed in accordance with clear, transparent, and fair rules. Top-level appointments in the law enforcement sector since 2015 have shown that clear and fair rules can only be guaranteed if international experts have a decisive say.
Zelenskyy is a well-known proponent of a system in which loyalty outweighs professionalism. That is precisely why he is so reluctant to give up the ability to appoint a "hand-picked" Prosecutor General.
Yet it is clear that meeting this EU requirement is in Ukraine's own interest. After all, it offers a long-overdue chance to appoint a Prosecutor General capable of independent judgment, rather than one who simply carries out Bankova's orders, as Ruslan Kravchenko does today, and as Yurii Lutsenko and Viktor Pshonka did before him.
Without complying with these requirements, Ukraine can knock on the EU's door as loudly as it likes and demand membership as early as 2027, but the door will remain closed, and the treasury will remain empty.
The Ukrainian people have paid in blood and sweat for the right to return to the European family. However, the Ukrainian authorities risk wasting this hard-won chance not just to survive, but to live with dignity.
"This is a loss of sovereignty," "we cannot allow external governance," "no EU country has anything like this," "we're at war, and you're asking for too much" — with these standard excuses, Zelenskyy justifies sabotaging selection processes in which international experts would have a decisive role.
Unsurprisingly, Yulia Tymoshenko is using very similar rhetoric, and even before the full-scale invasion, this propaganda was spread by Viktor Medvedchuk's TV channels.
Most recently, the government went so far as to remove all references to competitive selection for the heads of law enforcement bodies from the draft Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2026–2030.
We take a ten-year look back at the history of competitive appointments to top positions in Ukraine's judiciary and law enforcement agencies. It is a story of both failures and successes, of how the justice system and the law enforcement agencies should and should not be reformed.
This is not a story about losing sovereignty, but about building a genuine system of checks and balances to counter arbitrariness. It is a path toward a just state, forged in Ukraine. Not a panacea, but a necessary minimum.
2015. The first competition for the NABU Director
Following the Revolution of Dignity, in 2014, Parliament adopted a series of anti-corruption laws that, among other things, established the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and introduced the electronic asset declaration system. At the time, the composition of the selection commission was politically driven.
The selection model was as follows: nine commission members, appointed by the President, the government, and Parliament, selected three finalists, from whom the President appointed the winner.
Amid the high expectations that followed the Revolution of Dignity, the commission included widely respected Ukrainian public figures and even a serving senior EU official.
Despite the absence of a quota for international experts, the commission itself proved independent. Unprecedented public attention, combined with a level of transparency in the selection process that was unusual at the time, ensured that the eventual winner had no ties to any political forces, despite attempts to push through preferred candidates.
As a result, Artem Sytnyk became the Bureau's first director in April 2015. His tenure can be criticised. Yet one fact is beyond dispute: at that time, he was certainly not a political appointee and was therefore given a genuine chance to build a truly independent institution.
The Ukrainian authorities drew conclusions from the competition's outcome and, in the years that followed, used every available means to prevent the selection of candidates who were not "their own."
2016. The first competition for the SBI Director
At the same time, in 2014–2015, the process of establishing the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) began.
The SBI was meant to become Ukraine's version of the FBI and to finally strip the prosecution service of investigative functions. High expectations were placed on the Bureau as the key body for investigating Maidan cases; above all, crimes committed by Yanukovych's law enforcement officers, including the Berkut special police unit.
Political elites were well aware of the enormous power this agency would wield. After all, the SBI investigates crimes committed by top officials, law enforcement officers, civil servants, and the military. That is precisely why a political model for appointing the SBI's leadership and governing the Bureau was built into the law from the outset. For example, the law stipulated that the SBI director could make decisions only with the consent of his deputies.
The law itself was adopted at the end of 2015. Under the selection model, a nine-member commission was to select the Bureau's director, first deputy director, and deputy director. The quotas for appointing members of the selection commission were the same as those used for selecting the NABU director.
In practice, however, the process turned into a sham. A commission composed of politically appointed members exposed the model's inherent ineffectiveness. After all, in such a system, the only real safeguard is political will.
In reality, the competition merely formalised a political deal: the SBI's director and one deputy were aligned with President Poroshenko, while the first deputy answered to Prime Minister Yatseniuk.
As a result, Roman Truba was appointed Director of the State Bureau of Investigation, with Olha Varchenko and Oleksandr Buriak serving as his deputies. Under their leadership, the SBI was marred by numerous high-profile scandals and a complete breakdown in its functioning.
The previous authorities used the SBI for one of the first attacks on NABU. At the time, Olha Varchenko and Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko publicly declared a NABU detective a suspect, alleging abuses in a defence sector investigation. Within months, the case fell apart, and the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.
The new authorities inherited a politically controlled State Bureau of Investigation. The next "competition" was likewise merely an imitation, designed to legitimise leadership loyal to President Zelenskyy. The Bureau continued to be used as a tool of political pressure and in efforts to dismantle the anti-corruption system.
2018. The first selection of judges for the High Anti-Corruption Court and, for the first time, a requirement for the participation of international experts
The failure of Poroshenko's Supreme Court reform paved the way for the creation of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC).
It also became clear that ordinary local courts were incapable of properly hearing high-profile corruption cases and authorising investigative actions. Meanwhile, NABU had already begun delivering tangible results. A telling example was the case of Roman Nasirov, in which the Solomianskyi Court openly played along with his now-infamous "checkered blanket" charade.
The establishment of the High Anti-Corruption Court became an IMF condition for providing financial support to Ukraine. For the first time in history, international partners insisted that independent international experts be given a decisive role in selecting judges.
The law was adopted in 2018. The selection of judges, with the participation of international experts, took place in early 2019, and the court began operating in September of that same year.
Under this selection model, a key role was assigned to the Public Council of International Experts (PCIE), composed of six foreign experts. The PCIE was established as an auxiliary body to the High Qualification Commission of Judges. In practice, however, no candidate could pass the integrity assessment without the support of at least half of the PCIE members.
As a result, the PCIE blocked the majority of candidates whose integrity raised well-founded concerns. This ensured an unprecedented level of success and transparency in the selection process, especially compared to other competitions within Ukraine's judicial system at the time.
2019. The SBI "reboot" as a way of entrenching past mistakes
In 2019, President Zelenskyy decided to reboot the SBI, reforming an institution that the previous administration had turned into a fully politicised body. In the end, however, his team chose the very same path as Poroshenko's, cementing the SBI's role as a politically controlled law enforcement agency.
In late 2019, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law that transformed the State Bureau of Investigation from a central executive body into a state law enforcement agency. This automatically led to the dismissal of then-Director Roman Truba and his deputies. The new selection model once again provided for a nine-member commission, with three representatives each delegated by the President, the Verkhovna Rada, and the Cabinet of Ministers. This time, however, it was specified that the Cabinet's quota would be composed of individuals designated by international partners.
Since the law granted these international experts no real influence over the process and instead reduced their role to merely legalising the outcome, Ukraine's international partners refused to delegate their representatives to the commission.
As a result, the competition was conducted by a commission operating with only six members, five of whom were effectively under the control of the Presidential Office.
At the time, Schemes journalist Serhii Andrushko uncovered academic ties linking several commission members, as well as Oleksii Sukhachov, then acting director of the SBI, to Oleh Tatarov, Deputy Head of the Office of the President.
This OP controlled competition ultimately led to the recommendation of the same loyal candidate, Oleksii Sukhachov, for the position at the end of 2021. With this move, Zelenskyy's team effectively repeated the previous administration's playbook, creating a politically dependent institution.
2015 and 2020. Competitions for the SAPO head: how the first failed and the second produced an independent leader
In 2015, Nazar Kholodnytskyi became the first head of the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO). Having seen the outcome of the NABU competition, the authorities opted for a more aggressive approach.
Under the selection model, the commission consisted of 11 members, divided as follows:
– 7 delegated by the Verkhovna Rada;
– 4 appointed by the Prosecutor General (at that time, Viktor Shokin).
Each parliamentary faction (there was no monomajority at the time) nominated one candidate to the commission. As a result, Parliament delegated seven members, including Vitalii Shabunin, Head of the Board of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.
The Prosecutor General, in turn, appointed four prosecutors from the General Prosecutor's Office. However, the candidates put forward by Shokin had such a controversial reputation and raised so many questions about their integrity that international partners began demanding their replacement.
However, this did not save the competition from failure. Due to the commission's political composition, the compromise and weak candidate, Nazar Kholodnytskyi, emerged as the winner. He eventually became fully loyal to the authorities, and in 2018, NABU detectives documented his conduct in the so-called "aquarium tapes."
Kholodnytskyi resigned in the final year of his term, in August 2020, prompting a new competition.
A new competition dragged on for two years due to unprecedented obstruction by the authorities. Only when the appointment of the selected candidate became a condition for Ukraine's EU candidacy did Zelenskyy's Office unblock Oleksandr Klymenko's appointment.
The selection model remained unchanged: an 11-member commission, with seven representatives delegated by the Verkhovna Rada and four by the Council of Prosecutors, effectively controlled by Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.
This time, however, the prosecutors' quota included four independent experts: three foreigners and Ukrainian expert Roman Kuibida. All four were appointed on the informal recommendation of Ukraine's international partners, with the consent of the then Prosecutor General.
The real game-changer of this competition was a rule under which a decision was deemed adopted only if it received the support of at least two international experts and five members nominated by the Verkhovna Rada. This safeguard prevented the authorities from advancing "their own" candidates who failed to meet the standards of integrity and professionalism.
When Klymenko, an independent former NABU detective, reached the final stage, the parliamentary quota resorted to outright sabotage of the process.
In the end, this sabotage turned the competition into a disgrace: parliamentary representatives openly blocked Klymenko's appointment for months because of his previous high-profile investigations. These included cases involving Oleh Tatarov, by then already deputy head of the Presidential Office; MP Oleksandr Onyshchenko; Fiscal Service head Roman Nasirov, and the Svynarchuk family.
Despite the eventual appointment of an independent SAPO head, this competition delivered a clear lesson for both international partners and Ukrainian society: the decisive role of independent international experts must be enshrined in law. Otherwise, compliant members of selection commissions will resort to procedural manipulations.
2021 and 2025. Competitions for the ESBU head and the attempts to derail the process
In 2020, the Verkhovna Rada, dominated by Zelenskyy's ruling majority, adopted a new law "On the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine."
The creation of a new, modern body to investigate economic crimes had been one of Zelenskyy's campaign promises to the business community back in 2019. The ESBU was supposed to become a powerful tool for fighting oligarchic abuse and replace the discredited tax police, which had been harassing businesses for years.
In 2021, the first competition for the position of ESBU director got underway. As in many failed competitions, the commission consisted of nine politically appointed representatives: three from the National Security and Defence Council, two from the Verkhovna Rada's Tax Committee, one from the Verkhovna Rada's Law Enforcement Committee, and three from the Cabinet of Ministers.
The commission was chaired by Tymofii Mylovanov, a figure close to the Presidential Office. Among its members was also Yuliia Svyrydenko, who at the time served at the same Presidential Office as a deputy to Andrii Yermak.
During interviews with the finalists, most commission members joined online but did not even appear on screen, asked no questions, and gave no indication that they were actually present.
In the end, the commission, composed entirely of Ukrainian representatives, selected Vadym Melnyk as ESBU head: a candidate drawn from the very same discredited tax police. Moreover, his victory was known long before Mylovanov's commission formally announced its decision.
The consequences are now well known. 60% of the "new" ESBU staff came from the ranks of the tax police. And within just a few years, Ukraine was forced to reboot what was supposed to be a fresh, modern institution.
In 2025, the ESBU head was selected with the participation of international experts. Under the new selection model, the commission was to choose no more than two finalists, with international experts holding a decisive vote. Six members were delegated by the Cabinet of Ministers, three of whom were international experts.
A decision was deemed adopted if it received the support of four commission members, at least two of them international experts.
The commission's work proved effective, as the ESBU ultimately did secure an independent head. However, the authorities still tried to derail the process, most notably by bringing in the Security Service.
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Competitions in which international experts have a decisive vote are, of course, not a silver bullet or a 100% guarantee of institutional success. Yet a decade of experience with such selection processes in law enforcement and the judiciary shows that this remains the best model available, one that at least offers a chance for genuine political independence. There is little need to explain that without competitive selections at NABU, SAPO, and HACC, we would not even have a chance for cases like "Midas" to exist.
At the same time, we are witnessing how unreformed institutions, led by politically controlled appointees, are openly attacking independent anti-corruption bodies in an effort to discredit and dismantle them.
That is precisely why independent competitions must become the norm for key leadership positions in the justice and law enforcement sectors.
A competitive selection process for the Prosecutor General is a reform Ukraine needs both domestically and to fulfil its commitments to international partners. Experience shows that the only way to make such a process effective is to minimise political interference.
The appointment of Ruslan Kravchenko as Prosecutor General in 2025 is a telling example of why reform is critical.
No one explained why Kravchenko was suited for the role, what his prior achievements were, or assessed his integrity and independence. Notably, he had previously failed in competitions for the SAPO prosecutor position and the NABU head position. Yet immediately after his appointment, Kravchenko attempted to strengthen his control over NABU and SAPO, which would have undermined the independence of Ukraine's anti-corruption institutions.
In conclusion, the track record of appointing Prosecutors General and their subsequent conduct proves that without a competitive selection process and independent assessment, the result is inevitable political control over the institution. Instead of acting professionally and independently, the Prosecutor's Office becomes a tool of political pressure.
Only an independent selection process for the Prosecutor General, coupled with safeguards against politically motivated dismissal, can drive real change within the prosecution system.
The model of selection, with international experts playing a decisive role, is open to criticism. Yet for now, it remains the only mechanism that has consistently proven effective in practice across Ukraine's law enforcement and judicial systems.
So far, no better way to appoint senior officials to these institutions has been found.