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- Ukraine says it uncovers major drone procurement corruption scheme</p>
<p>Max HunderAugust 3, 2025 at 1:03 AM</p>
<p>By Max Hunder</p>
<p>KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies said on Saturday they had uncovered a major graft scheme that procured military drones and signal jamming systems at inflated prices, two days after the agencies' independence was restored following major protests.</p>
<p>The independence of Ukraine's anti-graft investigators and prosecutors, NABU and SAPO, was reinstated by parliament on Thursday after a move to take it away resulted in the country's biggest demonstrations since Russia's invasion in 2022.</p>
<p>In a statement published by both agencies on social media, NABU and SAPO said they had caught a sitting lawmaker, two local officials and an unspecified number of national guard personnel taking bribes. None of them were identified in the statement.</p>
<p>"The essence of the scheme was to conclude state contracts with supplier companies at deliberately inflated prices," it said, adding that the offenders had received kickbacks of up to 30% of a contract's cost. Four people had been arrested.</p>
<p>"There can only be zero tolerance for corruption, clear teamwork to expose corruption and, as a result, a just sentence," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.</p>
<p>Zelenskiy, who has far-reaching wartime presidential powers and still enjoys broad approval among Ukrainians, was forced into a rare political about-face when his attempt to bring NABU and SAPO under the control of his prosecutor-general sparked the first nationwide protests of the war.</p>
<p>Zelenskiy subsequently said that he had heard the people's anger, and submitted a bill restoring the agencies' former independence, which was voted through by parliament on Thursday.</p>
<p>Ukraine's European allies praised the move, having voiced concerns about the original stripping of the agencies' status.</p>
<p>Top European officials had told Zelenskiy that Ukraine was jeopardising its bid for European Union membership by curbing the powers of its anti-graft authorities.</p>
<p>"It is important that anti-corruption institutions operate independently, and the law adopted on Thursday guarantees them every opportunity for a real fight against corruption," Zelenskiy wrote on Saturday after meeting the heads of the agencies, who briefed him on the latest investigation.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Max Hunder; editing by Mark Heinrich)</p>
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