Prosecutor general 404: how Ruslan Kravchenko left the country

In late June last year, on the day Ruslan Kravchenko was appointed prosecutor general, Ukrainska Pravda noted that the president's decision to urgently nominate the youngest-ever candidate for the post may have been connected to an attempt to save one of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's closest associates, Oleksii Chernyshov – the first "victim" of the independence of Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO).

At the time, it appeared that the furthest extent of interference in the anti-corruption agencies' work was the transfer of a criminal case from NABU and SAPO to law enforcement bodies controlled by the President's Office. That was what happened with the investigation into Oleh Tatarov, Deputy Head of the President's Office, in December 2020.

Within a month it would become clear that Kravchenko had not been appointed to remove just one case, but so that all the cases being handled by the independent anti-corruption agencies would come under the control of a prosecutor general who was politically dependent on the president and parliament. With astonishing audacity, this would be carried out under the guise of combating so-called Russian influence within NABU and would involve the very agency headed by Kravchenko signing fake notices of suspicion against anti-corruption detectives.

Eventually, five months later, and following the failed attempt to seize control of the anti-corruption agencies, the NABU detectives had to be released from pre-trial detention. But Kravchenko remained in office. And, as became clear on Monday 14 September, this was not only to protect MPs in the president's parliamentary majority, but also to launch a new attack on the anti-corruption chain of command. [It is the prosecutor general who has the authority to enter notices of suspicion against MPs into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations and to authorise covert investigative actions or searches with respect to MPs – ed.]

On 4 September, NABU and SAPO announced the launch of Operation Carthage, aimed at dismantling the "roof" – the so-called protection racket for scam call centres within Ukraine's law enforcement agencies. Large-scale searches were carried out not only at the offices of the prosecutor general's subordinates, but also the office of Ruslan Kravchenko himself. Meanwhile, Kravchenko disappeared from his workplace and never returned home.

On 5 and 6 September, the prosecutor general kept disappearing and reappearing. The day after anti-corruption officials published recordings from the official investigation, Kravchenko said during the day that he had no intention of resigning, but that evening, after meeting with the president, he announced that he had made a "conscious political" decision to do just that.

A week went by, and the president's petition to dismiss the prosecutor general still hadn't reached parliament. Davyd Arakhamiia, Kravchenko's political "guardian angel", reassured the public from the sidelines that there was no rush and that the petition would arrive closer to the start of the plenary week. Nor was Kravchenko suspended by the president himself, who left for a foreign trip after some difficult conversations over the prosecutor general's fate.

But on the morning of 14 September, it emerged that the delay in formalising Kravchenko's resignation might not have been accidental. Exactly one week after announcing that he was stepping down, after the president had returned from his trip abroad and on the eve of a parliamentary session, the prosecutor general – still in place – announced in a video address that notices of suspicion had been signed against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos and a close associate of SAPO Head Oleksandr Klymenko.

Later, Ukrainska Pravda established that even as the whole country was watching the prosecutor general's address, he himself had already left the country.

The end result of this breathtaking special operation was that all the politicians involved got what they wanted. Kravchenko got security guarantees and the chance to go abroad unhindered on a fake official trip, while admirers of his "prosecutorial" talent got another attack on NABU and SAPO. An encore, so to speak.

Incidentally, Ukrainska Pravda sources in political circles say that Davyd Arakhamiia, leader of the president's parliamentary faction, had warned the heads of the anti-corruption agencies about just such an attack – whether by coincidence or not – a week before the events in question. The warning came during a meeting they had with the president, when Arakhamiia was desperately trying to save "his" prosecutor general. After that meeting, Zelenskyy made the decision to dismiss Kravchenko, while the prosecutor general, by the look of it, decided to prepare a counterattack and leave the country.

Ukrainska Pravda has attempted to figure out how Ruslan Kravchenko fled, who might have helped Ukraine's youngest-ever prosecutor general to become its most disgraced, and what the Monaco Battalion has to do with it.

The reaction to Operation Carthage

As children, many of the [Ukrainian] readers of this piece will have had the Mantoux test, which helps determine whether the body has been exposed to tuberculosis bacteria. It is important to note that this was not a vaccination against the disease – merely a test of immunity.

Similarly, Operation Carthage was a 10-day test of the political immunity of Zelenskyy's administration, which failed to stand up against the latest high-profile exposure of the presidential power vertical.

It is too early to assess the scale of the consequences of the decisions made or not made directly by the country's leadership. But it's not too soon to state that yet another of Zelenskyy's favourites [Ruslan Kravchenko rose rapidly during the president's prolonged tenure – ed.] may have been doing things he shouldn't have been doing, and responded to being exposed in a manner unbecoming of a responsible person vested with state powers. And that he has ultimately dragged the country, and the president himself, in the wrong direction just as Ukraine faces a "difficult winter".

From the very outset of Operation Carthage, it was clear that the prosecutor general could not have failed to notice what his subordinates were up to. Another key detail emerged after recordings of conversations between Serhii Kropyva, deputy head of the International Legal Cooperation Department at the Prosecutor General's Office, and his "boss" were made public during Kropyva's trial: the suspect was a trusted associate of the prosecutor general – so trusted, in fact, that he was coordinating the renovations at his home in Kozyn.

Even though the president, having learned from his experience of previous notices of suspicion served on "his people", decided almost immediately to dismiss the prosecutor general in order to turn down the political heat, an influential adviser was found in the "boss's" inner circle who suggested not jumping to personnel-related conclusions. Ukrainska Pravda sources in political circles say this was "director of parliament" Davyd Arakhamiia.

It was Arakhamiia, the same sources insist, who on the evening of 7 September told the heads of NABU and SAPO, Kryvonos and Klymenko, in the presence of the president, that Kravchenko had either already signed or was planning to sign notices of suspicion to be served on them. "He could set off a suicide belt," an Ukrainska Pravda source familiar with the meeting quoted Arakhamiia as saying.

So Zelenskyy could not have been unaware of what Kravchenko was prepared to do, just as he could not have failed to understand why Arakhamiia had used this "argument" at the meeting, after which the decision to dismiss the prosecutor general was made.

However, any positive effect from Kravchenko's announcement of his resignation swiftly faded after the news broke that the petition had still not reached the Ukrainian parliament between Monday and Friday.

Instead, Kravchenko was given time – time that influential sources in one of the law enforcement agencies told Ukrainska Pravda off the record he spent drawing up the notices of suspicion against NABU and SAPO. It is worth noting that even a year ago, when independent law enforcement agencies were targeting the president's closest associates, the authorities did not dare to serve notices of suspicion on the heads of the anti-corruption agencies. Back then, however, as Ukrainska Pravda reported, the main ideologue was the then-head of the President's Office, Andrii Yermak, who at that point was himself afraid of receiving a notice of suspicion, which he ultimately did.

This time, according to Ukrainska Pravda sources, the President's Office faced a similar fear with Yermak's successor in the wartime state's monopoly system of governance – Davyd Arakhamiia. They may be talking about a criminal investigation by NABU into payments of additional salaries in envelopes to MPs.

After all, the sources say, it wasn't just people linked to the Prosecutor General's Office and Kravchenko who had their premises searched by NABU and SAPO last week. So did several officials linked to the tax authorities.

The attentive reader could not fail to note here that before he moved to the Prosecutor General's Office, Ruslan Kravchenko was head of the State Tax Service. And, as sources in business circles have told Ukrainska Pravda, Kravchenko, and others too, somehow continued to retain their influence over the country's main fiscal authority.

That is why the tax service remained without a proper head for more than a year after Kravchenko moved to the Prosecutor General's Office, with only an acting head in place – Kravchenko's deputy, Lesia Karnaukh.

The fact that Karnaukh was dismissed on the very same day that Kravchenko left the country would seem to indicate that she was not just close to him, but may also have remained connected to her former boss after his departure.

Thus, if Kravchenko had been served with a notice of suspicion and detained, he could have been an important source of information for the anti-corruption agencies not only in relation to the call centre case, but also regarding how and by whom influence over the tax service may have been exercised.

"A prosecutor general with a grenade"

According to information available to Ukrainska Pravda, Kravchenko entered the notice of suspicion against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations on the night of 13-14 September. At 23:19, to be precise.

Why there was suddenly sufficient evidence to suspect a person of a criminal offence on a Sunday night is something that neither Kravchenko himself, nor the pro-government Telegram channels and Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) mouthpieces that were dishing out the latest attack on the anti-corruption agencies, have explained.

By contrast, the prosecutor general's statement that he was temporarily giving up his personal state protection was dated 01:00 on 14 September – approximately two hours after the information about the notice of suspicion against Kryvonos had been entered into the register. This may indicate that Kravchenko had already realised at that point that he wasn't leaving the country to go on a routine official trip. After all, with state protection in place, it would have been much easier to establish the prosecutor general's whereabouts.

The prosecutor general crossed the border with Poland through the Shehyni checkpoint in Lviv Oblast at 02:30, three hours after issuing the notice of suspicion and an hour and a half after giving up his personal state protection. This may indicate that Kravchenko was already somewhere near the border when he took steps one and two. His wife had left the country a day earlier, on 12 September, crossing the border with Moldova and travelling on to neighbouring Romania.

It is also important to note that the information that Kravchenko was planning to leave the country had been circulating in the highest government offices several days before his departure.

Since the launch of Operation Carthage, Kravchenko himself, sources in law enforcement say, had been concerned with one question only: personal guarantees of immunity. The prosecutor general never managed to find out whether he was going to be served with a notice of suspicion. The materials that the heads of NABU and SAPO say were gathered with the assistance of the SSU's Department for the Protection of National Statehood were readily available. Ukrainska Pravda's sources also said that Kravchenko regularly held meetings to discuss the prospects of an attack on the anti-corruption agencies and issued instructions.

Numerous sources interviewed by Ukrainska Pravda in political and law enforcement circles emphasise three main triggers that may have led to the prosecutor general deciding, in the middle of the night, to first attack NABU and SAPO and then leave the country several hours later.

1. Ruslan Kravchenko's main "saviour", Davyd Arakhamiia, fears being served with a notice of suspicion by NABU and SAPO, and therefore seeks to have not only communication with these agencies, but also leverage over them.
2. Kravchenko may have received information from law enforcement officials, including the SSU, that Operation Carthage would be succeeded by Operation Emperor, looking into his personal involvement in providing protection for scam call centres, followed by a notice of suspicion and his detention.
3. On 13 September, Kravchenko learned that a marker had been placed against his name in the border guards' database, meaning that the responsible officials were supposed to notify NABU and SAPO if he crossed the border. [A similar marker was triggered for former minister Herman Halushchenko, who was removed from the train and detained while attempting to leave the country – ed.].

Of course, it may be that the prosecutor general was influenced by all three factors. But in the context of theory No. 3, it is important to note that according to sources in law enforcement, on Sunday 13 September, none other than Davyd Arakhamiia attempted to find out why the marker had been placed against Kravchenko's name and whether it meant that he would be served with a notice of suspicion if he attempted to cross the border.

At a press briefing on the day of the attack on the anti-corruption agencies, SAPO Head Oleksandr Klymenko also said that Kravchenko may have been assisted in carrying out the plan by his close friend Dmytro Borzykh, a lawyer who is a NABU and SAPO suspect in the "hacker lawyers" case.

Another point that deserves particular attention is the fact that in the controversial video he posted after he had already fled the country, Kravchenko explicitly mentioned "political influence" on his work. It's entirely possible that the prosecutor general took the step of serving notices of suspicion on the heads of NABU and SAPO in order to furnish himself with arguments in a future application for political asylum in a European country.

And if that's the case, the question that naturally arises is why Zelenskyy would say in his public reaction to Kravchenko's video: "There's only one thing this prosecutor general can do now: leave office. That's exactly what I told him. Ukraine has seen all the reasons why. If he thinks this is political pressure, then let him call it that."

Could that message from the president indicate that as a thank-you for carrying out at least last year's attack on NABU and SAPO, the authorities are helping the prosecutor general to obtain the same security guarantees from NABU and SAPO? Could that quote from Zelenskyy – "If he thinks this is political pressure, then let him call it that" – come in handy for the new VIP political refugee?

Both President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly and Davyd Arakhamiia privately have been quick to distance themselves from Ruslan Kravchenko's actions. When news of the attack on NABU and SAPO broke, the president suspended the prosecutor general. That same day, parliament did all the necessary work to bring the issue of Ruslan Kravchenko's dismissal to the floor for a vote. And at 17:26 on 14 September, Deputy Prosecutor General Maksym Krym marked the notice of suspicion against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos in the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations as cancelled and entered in error.

Ukrainska Pravda had previously published information indicating that Kravchenko's official trip bore signs of being fake. On 15 September, parliament voted to dismiss the prosecutor general and the president found the time to sign off on it. The prosecutor general, meanwhile, has not returned to Ukraine. Having confirmed on 14 September that he was on an official trip.

But how can someone be on an official trip as prosecutor general when they aren't the prosecutor general anymore?

Mykhailo Tkach

Translated by Anna Kybukevych

Edited by Teresa Pearce