FT: Zelenskyy fires top aide as corruption allegations pile up

Zelenskyy fired one of his top aides on Wednesday after her house was raided by anti-corruption authorities, as the Ukrainian president comes under attack over a litany of graft allegations against top allies, Financial Times reports.

Deputy presidential administration head Iryna Mudra, a close Zelenskyy ally, was the highest-profile target in the raids alongside a lawmaker and executives at state-owned Sense Bank, law enforcement said.

A National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (Nabu) official said the money had been “laundered through a series of accounts belonging to shell companies in order to pay bail for a member of the criminal organisation”.

Mudra’s firing threatens to engulf the president in a fresh graft scandal just as he comes under attack from ousted defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

The night before the raid, Fedorov had launched a blistering broadside against Zelenskyy, warning that rampant graft was undermining the country’s fight against Russia and calling for extraordinary wartime elections.

Fedorov was fired after clashing with top military brass, in a shock move that sparked rare protests in Kyiv and across the country. Zelenskyy was forced to walk back his initial pick to replace the popular minister, and his new choice Yevhenii Khmara was approved by parliament on Wednesday.

Mudra, who had been in her role since March 2024, joined a long list of Zelenskyy allies to be tied to graft probes.

Powerful former chief of staff Andriy Yermak was charged in May with illicit enrichment and abuse of power, in a case allegedly involving a former deputy prime minister and ex-business partner of the president. Several lawmakers from Zelenskyy’s ruling party were also accused of taking cash in exchange for parliamentary votes.

In early August, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US resigned and was charged with illegal enrichment two days later. All those charged have denied wrongdoing.

Mudra said she was co-operating with investigators, adding she would defend “my good name myself”.

She also said she was grateful for the chance to spend time “on what I consider my life’s work: holding Russia and its top leadership accountable for aggression, restoring justice for our people and securing compensation for the damage done to us”.

Nabu and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sapo) on Friday said the raids targeted “a criminal organisation that operated under the leadership of current and former Ukrainian MPs, with the participation of high-ranking officials of the Office of the President”.

Officials involved in the raids told the FT the searches also targeted justice ministry officials and representatives of Sense Bank, formerly Alfa-Bank, one of Ukraine’s largest financial institutions employing about 4,000 people.

Nabu dubbed the case “Operation Forrest Gump”, publishing a cryptic 47-second video in the style of a Hollywood trailer that features a partial recording of an unknown man saying, “Only a moron would go and register the theft of money and payment for their kids’ education in the kids’ own names. That’s why it’s Forrest Gump.”

The agency, which often publishes slickly produced videos to accompany its operations, did not elaborate on its meaning.

The unfolding feud risks undermining the war effort, according to Olha Aivazovska, chair of Kyiv-based think-tank Opora.

“The political crisis is obvious, and unless a compromise is sought, all sides will move towards escalation,” she wrote on social media. “For some reason, the current leaders continue to operate in a peacetime political mode, without even fully imagining the cost of their mistakes.”

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