Zelenskyy’s ‘treasurer’ on trial: A look at the new wave of anti-corruption operations in Ukraine

On the evening of November 10, the European Solidarity party, led by Petro Poroshenko, who served as the President of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019, announced that it was initiating a vote of no confidence in the government. The move was prompted by a corruption scandal linked to Timur Mindych, a co-owner of the Kvartal 95 studio.

In its statement, European Solidarity declared, “We are initiating the process for the resignation of this incompetent and corrupt government. Our goal is to restore effectiveness in state administration, unity in society, and the trust of our international partners. We call on all our fellow deputies who see the threat this situation poses to the state to support the cabinet’s resignation for the formation of a national salvation government.”

Two days prior, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) had conducted a search at Mindych’s home, only to discover that he had already left the country. On the same day, searches were also reportedly carried out at the addresses of the Minister of Justice and German Galushchenko, who served as Minister of Energy from 2021 to 2025.

Poroshenko’s party raised the question: “How was Mindych able to leave the country so easily, while opposition MPs are not even sent to meetings where we request international support for the repair of Ukraine’s energy system?” The party demanded a “clear and effective response” to these events. Otherwise, according to the group’s representatives, Ukraine will lose the trust and support of its international partners.

For European Solidarity to bring the issue to the parliamentary floor, it needs to collect the signatures of at least 150 MPs. The party holds 26 seats in the Verkhovna Rada [the Ukrainian Parliament]. To oust the government, a majority vote is required; President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party, Servant of the People, holds 229 seats in parliament.

Who is Timur Mindych and what scandal is he involved in?

The investigation into Mindych is related to allegations of corruption in the energy sector. According to statements from NABU and SAPO, the investigation lasted 15 months, during which a thousand hours of audio recordings were collected. A statement from law enforcement agencies revealed that members of a high-level criminal organization had established a large-scale corruption network within the state company Energoatom (the operator of Ukraine’s three nuclear power plants). The bureau and the prosecutor’s office determined that group members were taking commissions of 10 to 15 percent of the contract value from contractors who signed agreements with the company. These contractors were forced to pay this money, particularly to avoid having their payments blocked in the banking system or to maintain their supplier status. This practice was dubbed a “gatekeeping fee.”

NABU and SAPO did not release names in the investigation but shared job titles. According to the distribution of roles, the leader of the criminal organization, Timur Mindych, brought Ihor Mironyuk, a former deputy head of the State Property Fund and later an advisor to the Minister of Energy, and Dmytro Basov, Energoatom’s security director, into the scheme. Using their connections within the ministry and the company, they gained control over personnel appointments, tenders, and financial flows.

The NABU and SAPO statement included the following: “The de facto management of a strategic state-owned enterprise with an annual income exceeding 200 billion hryvnias was not carried out by official authorities, but by external individuals with no official capacity. These individuals had assigned themselves the role of ‘overseers’.”

A special office was set up in the center of Kyiv to launder the illicit funds. This office managed the cash flow, kept clandestine accounts, and laundered the money through numerous shell companies abroad. According to the bureau and the prosecutor’s office, approximately $100 million passed through this “laundromat.”

Timur Mindych, a Ukrainian investor and producer, was born on September 19, 1979, in Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro). Mindych is a co-owner of the Kvartal 95 studio. According to the Ukrainian press, he had close ties to Ihor Kolomoyskyi, a businessman who has been in prison since September 2023 and is on trial for various crimes.

Kvartal 95 studio is Zelenskyy’s former workplace. It is also reported that Mindych was the one who introduced Zelenskyy to Kolomoyskyi. After becoming president, Zelenskyy distanced himself from Kolomoyskyi but maintained his relationship with Mindych. According to the news site Strana, Mindych was known as the “president’s treasurer”; it is alleged that interest groups within Zelenskyy’s team managed their financial flows through him.

Operation Midas

Mindych’s name has frequently come up this year in the context of corruption investigations conducted by NABU and SAPO. In July, the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda wrote that a structure linked to Mindych could be part of a NABU investigation and that he himself could become a suspect in an FBI money laundering case.

During the same period, it was revealed that NABU and SAPO had planted listening devices in Mindych’s home as part of “Operation Midas.” The audio recordings, some of which were made public by the anti-corruption agencies on November 10, were reportedly obtained through these devices. According to Ukrainian media reports, Zelenskyy had celebrated his birthday in this apartment five years ago, raising the possibility that he might also appear in these recordings.

Zelenskyy, for his part, has announced his support for the investigation into Mindych. In a post on his Telegram account, Zelenskyy stated, “Impunity must end. Energoatom today accounts for the largest share of energy production in Ukraine. Cleaning up the energy sector is our priority.”

Zelenskyy also added: “There must be convictions. Bureaucrats must work with NABU and law enforcement, and they must work in a way that delivers results.”

NABU is an institution with a special status that investigates corruption. Its jurisdiction includes the highest-ranking state officials, such as the president, prime minister, members of parliament, the prosecutor general, judges, and members of regional councils. The law establishing NABU was passed in 2014.

As for SAPO, it operates as an independent unit under the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine. Its duty is to oversee compliance with the law in operational and intelligence activities conducted by NABU. SAPO’s powers and responsibilities are clearly defined by the law on the prosecutor’s office.

Both organizations were established as part of the preconditions set by the European Union for easing the visa regime for Ukraine.

What does the scandal mean for Zelenskyy?

The corruption case against Mindych is the latest chapter in the country’s long-standing and often fierce power struggles.

The news site Strana suggests that a temporary “coalition of Zelenskyy’s enemies” began to form in Ukraine this spring. This coalition is said to include some opposition leaders (Petro Poroshenko, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko), certain circles previously linked to the U.S. Democratic Party (especially those holding prominent positions in NABU and SAPO), and various grant-funded organizations. According to the report, these structures were left without a patron following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

During this period, NABU and SAPO intensified their investigations into circles close to Zelenskyy. In addition to Mindych, the then-Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov was also included in an investigation. Chernyshov’s name appears in a case related to illegal land allocations, which allegedly caused a loss of 1 billion hryvnias (approximately $23.8 million) to the state budget. Chernyshov is still in Ukraine but was not included in the new government formed last July.

At that time, the government attempted to limit the independence of NABU and SAPO. In July, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law to this effect. However, when the European Union threatened to reduce its support for Ukraine, Zelenskyy backed down and introduced a new bill that re-secured the independence of the “anti-corruption” institutions, which the Rada was compelled to pass.

We covered the events of this period in the article at this link.

According to Strana, the government was preparing a counter-move against NABU and SAPO from another direction. It was rumored that a case could be opened against the Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Oleksandr Klymenko. However, this step was never taken.

The report suggests that the Presidential Administration feared a new backlash from Europe, a concern amplified by an increase in negative reports in the Western media. In this climate, the “coalition of Zelenskyy’s enemies” launched a counter-attack.

This counter-move materialized with a series of articles in the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper about Mindych, Chernyshov, and Zelenskyy, the searches at Mindych’s home, and the public airing of corruption allegations in the energy sector.

The coalition’s aim is to weaken Zelenskyy’s control over the parliament and the cabinet. The ultimate goal is to either force the President to form a “government of national unity” or to replace the current Prime Minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, with the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, who is seen as more aligned with the coalition.

The balance of power in the Ukrainian parliament

According to Article 76 of the Ukrainian Constitution, the Verkhovna Rada consists of 450 seats. However, after the 2019 elections, only 424 MPs took their seats in the 9th convocation of parliament.

The reason for this was the reduction in the number of MPs elected from single-mandate constituencies from 225 to 199, as Crimea and Sevastopol had been annexed by Russia at that time.

As of this month, there are 395 MPs serving in the Rada. This decline is due to the removal of a large number of MPs following the ban of the main opposition party until 2022, the Opposition Platform — For Life. The party was banned in April 2022.

A portion of the party, including its leader Yuriy Boyko, joined a new faction called the Platform for Life and Peace, established in the same year; this group currently has 21 MPs.

As of this month, there are eight parties and 22 independent MPs in the Verkhovna Rada:

The President’s party, Servant of the People: 229 seats; European Solidarity: 26 seats; Batkivshchyna (party of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, 2007-2010): 25 seats; Platform for Life and Peace: 21 seats; Holos and Dovira: 19 seats each; Za Maibutnie (For the Future) and Restoration of Ukraine: 17 seats each.

The next parliamentary elections were scheduled for March 2024 but were canceled due to martial law in Ukraine.