Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies were prepared for possible raids in advance

Senior officials from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) had been worried that after the scandal with the Bureau of Economic Security, NABU and SAPO could be next.

Source: a Ukrainska Pravda article, The Anti-Corruption Special Operation. What is behind the raids on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau

Quote from the article: "As far back as 10 July, Ukrainska Pravda had a conversation with some high-ranking NABU and SAPO officials during which they said that ‘if the public fails to press for the end of the Bureau of Economic Security selection procedure, then the next target will be NABU and SAPO’."

Details: Ukrainska Pravda sources in the prosecutor's office say that immediately after the new Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko was appointed, he demanded all the case files involving people from NABU and SAPO. A separate group of prosecutors promptly began to examine them, and at the same time, "media preparation for action against NABU" was taking place.

The authors of the article note that a week after the above-mentioned conversation took place, on 17 July, the new Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko made it clear in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) that the nominee for head of the Bureau of Economic Security would not be appointed.

The raids on the NABU employees came four days later, on 21 July.

The journalists emphasised that if even some of the accusations the Security Service of Ukraine has made regarding NABU representatives’ links with Russia are true, then the Bureau's leadership should be interested in "cleaning out the Russian sleeper agents from its structure and catching the moles", but so far it looks as if the "discrediting component" is key in this story.

"When the ‘big exposé’ turns out to be about cases of road accidents that have been under investigation for four years, it does seem as if the aim is to create the effect of a massive action and paralyse work for as many Bureau employees as possible," the article says.

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