A close associate of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Tymur Mindich, was accused on Tuesday by Ukrainian investigators of having orchestrated a large-scale corruption scheme involving around 100 million dollars.
These accusations mark a turning point in the corruption scandal shaking the country’s energy sector and signal a deepening power struggle within the Ukrainian government.
Mindich is a co-owner of the television production company Kvartal 95, founded by Zelensky when he was a popular comedian before entering politics.
“Mr. Mindich exercised control over the accumulation, distribution, and laundering of funds of criminal origin in the Ukrainian energy sector”, a prosecutor from the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) said in court.
The suspect allegedly used his “privileged relationship with the Ukrainian president” to facilitate his criminal activities, the prosecutor added.
The current Minister of Justice, Herman Halushchenko, who previously served as Minister of Energy for four years, has also been accused by SAPO of receiving “personal benefits” from Mindich in exchange for overseeing the flow of financial resources in the energy sector.
On Monday, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) announced that it had dismantled a 100-million-dollar money-laundering scheme. Five people were arrested and seven were formally charged.
“The work carried out has made it possible to obtain thousands of hours of audio recordings, which constitute evidence of the activities of a high-level criminal organization operating in the energy and defense sectors”, the agency said in a statement.
Mindich has since left the country.
Operation “Midas”, conducted over 15 months in cooperation with SAPO, led to 70 searches and exposed a criminal network that extorted funds from subcontractors working with the state-owned nuclear company Energoatom.
Energoatom confirmed that its offices had been searched and stated that it was cooperating with investigators, without commenting on the corruption allegations.
According to Ukrainian media, the homes of both Halushchenko and Mindich were also searched.
Oleksander Abakumov, head of the NABU investigative team, told state television that Mindich had left the country shortly beforehand.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice said that Halushchenko was cooperating with the investigation and would refrain from further comment.
NABU and SAPO are independent anti-corruption institutions.
The Ukrainian government on Tuesday dismissed Energoatom’s supervisory board, which investigators consider a central element in the corruption network.
This move, together with an emergency government audit, was described by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko as “initial steps toward restoring Energoatom”.
Following Monday’s searches, President Zelensky stated that all actions taken against corruption were “absolutely necessary” and urged officials to cooperate with investigators.
By late Tuesday, he had not yet commented on the accusations against Tymur Mindich.
These allegations of embezzlement in the energy sector—already under heavy pressure due to continuous Russian attacks causing massive power outages—have sparked widespread public outrage.
Eradicating corruption is also one of the main conditions for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
This summer, Zelensky faced strong criticism from the public and from Brussels after he attempted to bring NABU and SAPO under government control.