Former Ukrainian prosecutor general Kravchenko fired from prosecution service after failing to return from abroad

Why it matters

The case is an unusually public breakdown inside Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General: a dismissed chief prosecutor stayed abroad while the presidency, parliament and anti-corruption bodies all moved against him. It touches the independence of NABU and SAPO, since Kravchenko signed suspicion notices against their heads on the morning of 14 September, the same day he was suspended. It also raises accountability questions, because Kravchenko matches the biographical profile of 'Shef,' the figure referenced in NABU/SAPO 'Carthage' case recordings as a former head of the State Tax Service, and it illustrates the wartime legal mechanism the president used — Part 2 of Article 11 of the Law on the Legal Regime of Martial Law — to sideline him.

What happened

Former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, who had held the post since June 2025, signed his own order on 13 September for a five-day business trip to Paris, ostensibly to attend a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Network hearing on the situation of children in Ukraine. He crossed the Ukrainian border at the Shehyni checkpoint on the night of 13–14 September. The OGP has no official information on whether he has re-entered the country or where he is.

On the morning of 14 September, Kravchenko announced he had signed suspicion notices against NABU director Semen Kryvonos, accusing him of forging official documents and fictitious adoption, and against a person close to SAPO head Oleksandr Klymenko, accusing them of trying to influence HACC judges, offering illegal benefits and facilitating mobilization evasion. The OGP officially stated that the information about the suspicion notice for Kryvonos did not correspond to reality and that no legal grounds existed; Kryvonos said at a briefing that he had received no paper document. A PACE spokesperson told journalists that neither Kravchenko nor anyone from his office was on the list of participants in the hearing he cited as the purpose of his trip.

That same day, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree suspending Kravchenko under Part 2 of Article 11 of the Law on the Legal Regime of Martial Law and said the only path for him was dismissal. On 15 September, the Verkhovna Rada backed his removal and Zelensky signed the dismissal decree; Anton Kovalsky was appointed acting Prosecutor General. Despite losing the top post, Kravchenko formally remained a prosecutor within the OGP under the Law on Prosecution.

By 14:00 on 21 September, three days after his trip officially ended on 18 September, Kravchenko had not returned to work; OGP spokesperson Maryana Haiovska said she did not know where he was or whether he had returned to Ukraine. According to Ukrainska Pravda sources in law enforcement, he had not crossed the border back into Ukraine as of that date. Earlier in the day, Kravchenko submitted his own resignation from the prosecution service, and acting Prosecutor General Kovalsky signed the dismissal order. The OGP said accepting Kravchenko's resignation allowed a faster exit than the lengthier Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors procedure. Ukrainian sources noted that Kravchenko's wife had left Ukraine on 12 September at 01:00 via Moldova and that, around 01:00 on the night of his departure, he had refused state protection; the Anti-Corruption Action Center said his departure abroad was only possible with the consent and permission of President Zelensky.

How Ukrainian sources describe it

Ukrainian outlets frame the episode as a collision between the Office of the Prosecutor General and the country's anti-corruption infrastructure. NABU director Semen Kryvonos and SAPO head Oleksandr Klymenko publicly characterized Kravchenko's suspicion notices as a reaction to 'Operation Carthage' and an attempt to politicize the work of anti-corruption bodies. President Zelensky publicly demanded Kravchenko's dismissal, and the Verkhovna Rada backed the move a day later. The OGP publicly rejected the suspicion notices as having no legal basis, and Kravchenko's own written resignation from the prosecution service on 21 September enabled a swifter administrative exit. Several Ukrainian reports also raised accountability issues, noting that Kravchenko matches the biographical profile of 'Shef' in the 'Carthage' recordings, and that his self-issued trip to a hearing he was not registered for raised questions about the stated purpose of his travel.

Where reporting differs

Ukrainian sources disagree on the vehicle Kravchenko used to cross the border on the night of 13–14 September: some Ukrainska Pravda reports said a service vehicle, while later reporting indicated he crossed at the Shehyni–Medyka checkpoint in a Mercedes-Benz V-Class premium taxi from LLC 'Andreoli,' even though his own trip order specified an official vehicle. Sources also differ on whether OGP vehicles were actually used for the trip — one OGP source told Ukrinform they were not, while the trip order and earlier UP reporting described a service vehicle. Ukrainian sources and Kravchenko himself also differ on whether the suspicion notice for NABU director Kryvonos was actually served; Kravchenko claimed he sent it by mail, while the OGP said the information did not correspond to reality and Kryvonos said he received no paper document.

Background

Ruslan Kravchenko served as Prosecutor General of Ukraine from June 2025; before that, from December 2024 to June 2025, he headed the State Tax Service. On 4 September, NABU and SAPO searched the offices of Kravchenko, his deputy Maria Vdovychenko and Odesa OVA head Oleh Kiper, and on 5 September announced 'Operation Carthage,' identifying Serhiy Kropyva, deputy head of the OGP Department of International Legal Cooperation, as the alleged head of a criminal organization 'roofing' fraudulent call centers; Kropyva was remanded in custody on 6 September with alternative bail of UAH 120 million, and on 7 September HACC took his partner, 24-year-old Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, into custody. Kravchenko submitted a resignation letter on 7 September. On 14 September, after Kravchenko announced suspicion notices against NABU director Kryvonos and a person close to SAPO head Klymenko, Zelensky signed a decree suspending him under Part 2 of Article 11 of the Law on the Legal Regime of Martial Law, and the Verkhovna Rada voted to dismiss him on 15 September. In the 'Carthage' recordings, NABU/SAPO point to a figure called 'Shef,' described as a former head of the State Tax Service whose patronymic 'Andriyovych' matches Kravchenko's biographical data; Kravchenko himself has not been formally named as a suspect in the case. Despite losing the Prosecutor General post, Kravchenko retained the status of a prosecutor within the OGP until 21 September, when his own resignation was accepted.