Ukrainian court orders central bank to investigate banks blocking bail payments in anti-corruption case
Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court has ordered the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) to verify within 24 hours whether banks are blocking bail payments into the court's accounts, after human rights organizations and the defense of former deputy head of the Office of the President Iryna Mudra complained that detainees remain in custody because no bank will process their bail. The ruling, which is final and not subject to appeal, requires the NBU to check the refusals and, if they are unfounded, take measures to ensure bail payments go through. The NBU has publicly denied directing banks to refuse such payments.
Key points
- On 24 September, a High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) investigating judge granted a defense complaint by Iryna Mudra over banks' refusal to process her bail payment; the ruling is final and not subject to appeal.
- The court ordered the NBU within 24 hours to verify whether banks are blocking bail payments to the HACC account and, if refusals are unfounded, to take measures to ensure the payments are processed.
- The court also ordered the NBU to hand over to the court and the defense its correspondence and recommendations to banks regarding "bail" payments and reports of mass refusals.
- Six Ukrainian human rights organizations demanded that the NBU stop blocking bail payments, saying banks are rejecting even small sums (10, 100 and 1,000 hryvnia) as well as payments from lawyers and relatives, and that the practice makes bail illusory.
- HACC set bail for Iryna Mudra at 20 million hryvnia on 25 August; she deposited 5 million hryvnia of her own funds before her accounts were seized, and her husband's attempts to pay the rest were refused by banks.
- The NBU publicly denied any "manual interference" and called reports that 15 banks refused payments "after a call from the NBU" absurd, saying each transaction is decided by the bank after a risk-based analysis.
- People's deputy Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk publicly questioned the ruling's enforceability, arguing the Criminal Procedure Code does not provide for an investigating judge's ruling ordering such a verification.
Why it matters
Suspects in a major Ukrainian anti-corruption case, including a former deputy head of the Office of the President, are being held in pre-trial detention even though courts have ordered their release on bail, because banks refuse to process the payments. Human rights groups argue the practice violates the European Convention on Human Rights and Ukraine's Constitution by making bail illusory. The court's order puts the conduct of the central bank under direct judicial scrutiny at a moment when NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) are pursuing senior former officials, raising questions about the credibility of both the bail system and Ukraine's anti-corruption institutions.
What happened
On 24 September, an investigating judge of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) granted a defense complaint by Iryna Mudra, a former deputy head of the Office of the President, over banks' refusal to process her bail payment. The court ruled that the refusals may violate the rights of the detainee and ordered the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) within 24 hours to verify whether banks are blocking bail payments to the HACC account. If the refusals are found to be groundless, the NBU is required to take measures to ensure the bail payment goes through. The court also ordered the NBU to provide the court and the defense with its correspondence and recommendations to banks regarding payments labeled "bail" and information about mass refusals. The ruling is final and not subject to appeal.
The complaint was filed after Mudra, whose bail HACC set at 20 million hryvnia on 25 August, managed to deposit only 5 million hryvnia of her own funds before her accounts were seized; her husband's attempts to pay the remainder were refused by banks. Separately, six Ukrainian human rights organizations — the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, the Ukrainian Institute for Human Rights, the Center for Civil Liberties, the Helsinki Human Rights Union civic community, the charitable fund "Person and Law," and the all-Ukrainian charitable organization "Ukrainian Legal Aid Foundation" — publicly demanded that the NBU stop banks from blocking bail payments to HACC accounts. They said banks are rejecting even small sums of 10, 100 and 1,000 hryvnia, as well as payments from lawyers and relatives, and that the practice makes bail an illusory possibility. The NBU has publicly denied any "manual interference," calling reports that 15 banks refused payments "after a call from the NBU" absurd and saying it has issued no instruction either to automatically refuse or to mandatorily execute bail payments to the HACC.
How Ukrainian sources describe it
Ukrainian coverage frames the episode as a direct confrontation between the High Anti-Corruption Court and the National Bank. Outlets including ZN.UA, Ukrainska Pravda, hromadske, NV, Suspilne and Interfax-Ukraine have paired the NBU's denial of "manual interference" with allegations from human rights organizations and from sources within banks that the regulator is in fact steering the refusals. Reporting gives prominent space to the joint statement by the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, the Center for Civil Liberties, the Ukrainian Institute for Human Rights and the other signatory organizations, foregrounding the argument that bail has become illusory. Coverage also situates the dispute inside the broader "Forrest Gump" and "Midas" anti-corruption operations, naming Iryna Mudra, Vadym Stoliar, Maksym Mykytas, Viktor Dubovyk, Valentyn Yelizarov and former energy and justice minister Herman Halushchenko, and frames Mudra's continued detention as a symptom of dysfunction in the bail system that touches the credibility of Ukraine's anti-corruption institutions.
Where reporting differs
Sources report a direct conflict over who is responsible for the refusals. Bank representatives and ZN.UA sources say banks' financial monitoring units are classifying funds intended for bail at HACC accounts as risky and that, in private conversations, bank staff cite a recommendation from the central regulator not to process such payments; in some cases banks have also terminated service agreements with suspect Vadym Stoliar. The NBU publicly denies any "manual interference" and calls reports that 15 banks refused payments "after a call from the NBU" absurd, saying it has issued no instruction either to automatically refuse or to mandatorily execute bail payments and that each transaction is decided by the bank after a risk-based analysis.
A second disagreement concerns the enforceability of the HACC ruling itself. People's deputy Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk publicly questioned how the NBU can "ensure channels for making bail" and transmit the measures taken to the court within 24 hours without violating banking secrecy, and noted that the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court — including in its ruling of 23 May 2018 in case No. 243/6674/17 — and the Cassation Criminal Court have repeatedly stated that the Criminal Procedure Code does not provide for an investigating judge's ruling authorizing such a verification.
Background
The bail-blocking dispute sits inside the "Forrest Gump" operation announced by NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) on 19 August. The investigation alleges a scheme to take over the state-owned Sense Bank and use it for private purposes, including laundering funds to post bail for a suspect in the separate "Midas" case, identified in reporting as former energy and justice minister Herman Halushchenko. On 19 August, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree dismissing Iryna Mudra from her post as deputy head of the Office of the President. On 25 August, HACC ordered Mudra detained with an alternative of 20 million hryvnia bail; prosecutors said she may hold assets exceeding 250 million hryvnia and had asked for bail of 150 million hryvnia. Other "Forrest Gump" suspects include current MP Vadym Stoliar of the former OPFL, former MP Maksym Mykytas, Office of the President General Director for Legal Issues Viktor Dubovyk, and Valentyn Yelizarov; on 21 August HACC took Yelizarov, Mykytas and Dubovyk into custody with the option of bail. Mudra's defense is represented by the law firm Miller.