Ukraine approves regulation restoring independence of anti-graft watchdogs following backlash

KYIV – After a public outcry and strain from the European Union, a brand new regulation is now in drive in Ukraine restoring the independence of state companies investigating corruption.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy launched this invoice after going through his first main home political disaster since Russia’s full-scale invasion three and a half years in the past. He and Ukraine’s parliament reversed course after approving a earlier invoice to position anti-corruption companies below a Zelenskyy-backed prosecutor.

Hundreds of Ukrainians took the streets in protest, calling it an authoritarian transfer.

“It is very important that the state listens to public opinion and hears its citizens,” Zelenskyy mentioned in a video tackle on Thursday. “Ukraine is a democracy for sure. There is no doubt.”

Ukrainian lawmakers vote for a brand new invoice proposed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to revive the independence of the nation’s anti-corruption companies, on the parliament session corridor in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 31, 2025.

Sarakhan Vadym/AP

conceal caption

toggle caption

Sarakhan Vadym/AP

The 2 companies – the Nationwide Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Workplace – had been created after 2014, when a pro-democracy revolution introduced down a corrupt, Kremlin-aligned president, Viktor Yanukovych. The EU, which has given Ukraine greater than $178 billion since January 2022, sees these companies as essential to institutional reforms Ukraine is required to finish earlier than the nation presumably joins the 27-member bloc.

After final week’s transfer to weaken the anti-corruption companies, the EU froze $1.7 billion in non-military support. Writing on social media, Marta Kos, the EU commissioner for enlargement, mentioned the brand new regulation “restores key safeguards but challenges remain.”

Thursday’s vote in parliament was livestreamed. Ukrainians watching at a sq. exterior waited nervously as a timer inside parliament’s chambers counted right down to the tip of voting. After they noticed that almost all lawmakers supported the brand new regulation, they cheered and chanted.

Yehor Soboliev is a former lawmaker who, years in the past, helped draft the laws permitting anti-corruption companies to conduct investigations independently. He now serves within the army and says transparency is very essential now.

“We are fighting a country that is many times larger than us, has many more resources and can throw them at us to conquer us,” he says. “Efficiency means survival. It’s simple: anything that weakens Ukraine’s ability to fight or preserve its freedom is a problem that must be solved immediately.”

Soboliev says this previous week has proven that Ukraine “is probably the last country in the world where you can create a dictatorship.” And, he provides, that applies even because the nation defends itself in a struggle in opposition to Russia.

“We must simultaneously hold the frontline,” he says, “while also pushing democracy and this country forward.”