Former Prosecutor General Kravchenko has not returned to Ukraine or to his post at OGP after his trip abroad expired
Former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko had not returned to his post at the Office of the Prosecutor General (OGP) or to Ukraine by 14:00 on 21 September, three days after the official end of his five-day foreign business trip. The OGP said it has no official information on his whereabouts. His absence comes after he was dismissed as Prosecutor General on 15 September, following his suspension the previous day by President Zelensky and the Verkhovna Rada's vote to back his removal.
Key points
- As of 14:00 on 21 September, Kravchenko had not returned to work at the Office of the Prosecutor General; the OGP said it has no information on his location or whether he is back in Ukraine.
- His five-day foreign business trip was issued on 13 September and was officially scheduled to end on 18 September.
- On 14 September, Kravchenko announced he had signed suspicion notices against NABU director Semen Kryvonos and a person close to SAPO head Oleksandr Klymenko.
- The same day, President Zelensky publicly said Kravchenko's only path was dismissal and signed a decree suspending him from the post of Prosecutor General under the Law on the Legal Regime of Martial Law.
- On 15 September, the Verkhovna Rada backed Kravchenko's dismissal and Zelensky signed the dismissal decree.
- Kravchenko remains a prosecutor within the OGP even after losing the administrative post of Prosecutor General; Acting Prosecutor General Anton Kovalsky was appointed in his place.
- Kravchenko crossed the border at the Shehyni checkpoint in an official vehicle in the night of 13–14 September; a PACE spokesperson said he was not on the list of participants in the PACE Parliamentary Network hearing his trip order cited.
Why it matters
A former Prosecutor General of Ukraine is abroad with no confirmed location, three days after his trip formally ended and days after parliament voted to dismiss him. The episode sits at the intersection of an active anti-corruption investigation ("Operation Carthage") into alleged "roofing" of fraudulent call centres by officials of the Office of the Prosecutor General he once led, and of his own last acts in office — signing suspicion notices against the heads of NABU and against a person close to the head of SAPO on the same morning he left the country. Because dismissal as Prosecutor General does not strip him of his status as a prosecutor within the same Office, his continued absence raises the question of further disciplinary dismissal. The case is being read both as a question of personal accountability and as a flashpoint in the relationship between the political leadership and Ukraine's anti-corruption infrastructure.
What happened
Ruslan Kravchenko, who was dismissed as Prosecutor General on 15 September, has not returned to Ukraine or to his position at the Office of the Prosecutor General after the five-day foreign business trip issued to him on 13 September expired. The trip was officially scheduled to end on 18 September; as of 14:00 on 21 September the OGP said it had no official information on his whereabouts and that he had not arrived at work. OGP spokesperson Mariana Haiovska confirmed that she did not know whether Kravchenko had come back to Ukraine or where he was. Kravchenko remains formally a prosecutor within the Office of the Prosecutor General even after losing the administrative post of Prosecutor General. Acting Prosecutor General Anton Kovalsky was appointed in his place.
Where reporting differs
Sources diverge on the status of the suspicion notice Kravchenko claimed to have signed against NABU director Semen Kryvonos. Kravchenko said he had signed it and mailed it; the Office of the Prosecutor General officially said there were no legal grounds to notify NABU's head of suspicion and that no paper document had been delivered; Kryvonos himself said at a briefing that he had not received it. There is also no agreement on the true purpose of Kravchenko's trip to Paris. His travel order and public statements framed it as attendance at PACE hearings on Ukrainian children, and he later said the goal was to brief international partners on the state of the anti-corruption system. A PACE spokesperson said neither Kravchenko nor representatives of his office were on the participants' list for the Parliamentary Network hearing on the situation of children in Ukraine, and a Council of Europe source said the event's organisers had not invited him. Sources also differ on how Kravchenko's departure should be read: the Anti-Corruption Action Center argued that leaving the country was only possible with the President's consent and permission, while law-enforcement sources describe a less formal overnight crossing via the Shehyni checkpoint in an official vehicle. A separate factual conflict concerns whether OGP service vehicles were used for the trip: one strand of reporting says Kravchenko crossed the border in a service vehicle, while another states that vehicles of the Office of the Prosecutor General were not deployed for his business trip.
Background
Ruslan Kravchenko headed the State Tax Service from December 2024 to June 2025 before being appointed Prosecutor General in June 2025. On 4 September, NABU and SAPO searched the Office of the Prosecutor General and announced "Operation Carthage," exposing an alleged criminal organisation within the OGP accused of "roofing" fraudulent call centres and laundering proceeds; the official identified in the case was Serhii Kropyva, deputy head of the OGP's Department of International Legal Cooperation. On 6 September the High Anti-Corruption Court ordered Kropyva held in custody with alternative bail of UAH 120 million; on 7 September HACC took into custody Kropyva's partner Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, and Kravchenko submitted his resignation the same evening. Kravchenko's foreign business trip was ordered on 13 September for five days, with the stated purpose of attending PACE hearings in Paris on Ukrainian children; a PACE spokesperson said neither Kravchenko nor his office's representatives were on the participants' list. He crossed the border via the Shehyni checkpoint in an official vehicle in the night of 13–14 September; sources say he declined state protection shortly before leaving, and that his wife had left Ukraine for Moldova on 12 September. On 14 September, President Zelensky publicly said Kravchenko's only path was dismissal and suspended him from the post of Prosecutor General under the Law on the Legal Regime of Martial Law; the Verkhovna Rada backed his dismissal the following day, with Zelensky signing the dismissal decree on 15 September.