Searches underway at premises linked to Ukrainian National Bank's governor, sources say
Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) are conducting searches at premises linked to Andrii Pyshnyi, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
Source: Ukrainska Pravda sources
Details: On 19 August, NABU and SAPO released the Forest Gump investigation into a criminal group that had organised a money-laundering scheme to pay bail for Herman Halushchenko, former energy and justice minister. The state-owned Sense Bank was used for this purpose.
On 20 August, the anti-corruption agencies released the second part of the investigation, titled Femida (Themis), concerning how the same criminal group had orchestrated raider takeovers of properties and businesses in Kyiv.
On 2 September, the National Bank found Sense Bank CEO Oleksii Stupak to be non-compliant with professional suitability requirements and demanded that he be replaced.
The appointment of the bank's management and the formation of its supervisory board were overseen by Vasyl Veselyi, the government's behind-the-scenes power broker at Sense Bank. Officially, he held the position of adviser to the bank's head.
The Midas recordings captured a conversation between Oleksandr Tsukerman and Vasyl Veselyi. Figures implicated in the Midas case had discussed the composition of the supervisory board of state-owned Sense Bank more than a month before it was appointed on 18 June 2025.
Former Sense Bank Supervisory Board chairman Şevki Acuner told a temporary parliamentary commission of inquiry that Veselyi had been appointed to Sense Bank on the recommendation of NBU Governor Andrii Pyshnyi.
Sources in political circles told Ekonomichna Pravda that Pyshnyi and Veselyi knew each other through Andrii Ivanchuk, a late MP from the Peopl's Front faction who had studied at university with the current NBU governor.
Pyshnyi himself said he had not made any recommendations to the Sense Bank Supervisory Board regarding the appointment of Veselyi, a figure in the investigations.
Background: It was reported in August that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was dissatisfied with National Bank Governor Andrii Pyshnyi and that the possibility of his dismissal had already been discussed.
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