Zelensky appoints Anton Kovalsky as acting Prosecutor General

Why it matters

The Prosecutor General leads Ukraine's chief law-enforcement body during wartime, with broad authority over criminal investigations and cases of national significance. Kovalsky's elevation from a regional prosecutor's office to acting Prosecutor General comes after a turbulent few days for the Office of the Prosecutor General (OPG), including NABU/SAP investigations into a criminal organization allegedly led by a senior OPG official and the abrupt departure of his predecessor, Ruslan Kravchenko, from Ukraine.

What happened

President Volodymyr Zelensky signed decree №946/2026 appointing Anton Kovalsky as acting Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The decree was issued in accordance with Part 2 of Article 11 of Ukraine's Law on the Legal Regime of Martial Law, which allows the president to assign acting duties during martial law. Kovalsky previously served as head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Prosecutor's Office from 1 July 2025, and before that headed the Chernivtsi regional office from November 2021 and served as deputy head of the Vinnytsia regional office from September 2020 to October 2021.

The appointment follows the dismissal of Ruslan Kravchenko. On 15 September, Zelensky signed a decree dismissing Kravchenko from the post of Prosecutor General, and the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, voted 317 in favor of accepting Kravchenko's resignation. On the night of 14 September, Kravchenko had left Ukraine on the pretext of a business trip, according to Ukrainska Pravda — a five-day assignment to Paris "to participate in PACE hearings on Ukrainian children," on which he was not listed as a speaker. That same morning, Kravchenko announced he had signed a notice of suspicion against NABU director Semen Kryvonis and a person close to SAP head Oleksandr Klymenko; the Office of the Prosecutor General later denied the suspicion notice had been entered, stating the corresponding entries had been removed from the ERDR. Kravchenko publicly accused the president of pressure and accused anti-corruption bodies of pressing the president.

Sources differ on the exact date the appointment decree was signed: one group places it on 17 September 2026, another on Thursday, 19 September.

How Ukrainian sources describe it

All nine supplied sources are Ukrainian outlets (eight Ukrainian media and one Ukrainian agency), and they frame the story as a direct presidential decision, leading with Zelensky's name and the decree number and giving significant space to Kovalsky's regional-prosecutor biography. Ukrainian coverage emphasizes the institutional context — the prior dismissal of Kravchenko, the Verkhovna Rada vote accepting his resignation (317 MPs in favor), and the NABU/SAP investigations into the Office of the Prosecutor General — as the backdrop for the new appointment.

Where reporting differs

Sources disagree on the date the decree appointing Anton Kovalsky as acting Prosecutor General was signed. One group (article 23133) places it on 17 September 2026, while another (article 23137) dates it to Thursday, 19 September. A related disagreement has article 23182 stating the decree was published on 17 September, while article 23137 dates the decree to Thursday, 19 September.

Background

Anton Kovalsky graduated in 2011 from the National Academy of the Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine with a specialty in Law and began his career in the prosecutor's office that same year. He was born on 12 May 1984 in Vinnytsia, according to reporting. Ruslan Kravchenko was appointed Prosecutor General on 17 June 2025, having previously headed the State Tax Service from December 2024 to June 2025. On 14 September, the day before his dismissal, Kravchenko announced he had signed a notice of suspicion against NABU director Semen Kryvonis and a person close to SAP head Oleksandr Klymenko; the Office of the Prosecutor General later denied the suspicion notice had been entered. On 5 September, NABU and SAP announced the exposure of a criminal organization allegedly led by a senior official in the Office of the Prosecutor General involved in receiving bribes from fraudulent call centers; recordings in the case reference a person referred to as "Chef" (Shef), identified as the former head of the State Tax Service.