Slovakia’s Fico meets Ukraine’s Zelenskiy and delivers a message from Putin, opening indirect talks between the two presidents

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Uzhgorod to talk about energy and the peace process. / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Belrin September 5, 2025

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Uzhgorod, close to the Slovak-Ukrainian border, on September 5 and delivered a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin in what could be an  indirect approach  to start talks between the two presidents. 

Zelenskiy said they discussed the path to a peaceful settlement of the war in Ukraine and post-war security guarantees, as well as Europe’s energy independence. "Russian oil, just as Russian gas, has no future," Zelenskiy said, referring to Ukraine’s recent bombing of Russian pipelines delivering oil and gas to Central Europe.

Zelenskiy described the conversation with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico as “substantive.”

“Thank you for the meeting. It is important that we have this dialogue, and we will continue it,” Zelenskiy said.

The meeting, which took place in the western Ukrainian city, are the first confirmed attempts by Putin to communicate directly with Zelenskiy at a time when US President Donald Trump has been trying to bring Putin and Zelenskiy together for direct talks to halt the conflict in Ukraine.

“Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy today in Uzhgorod, near the Slovak-Ukrainian border,” a joint statement released after the talks said giving no more details.

Fico has just returned from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin in China where he had a one-on-one meeting as the only member of the EU to travel to attend the event.

Fico is along with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban one of the few EU leaders sympathetic to Russia and has constantly called for an end to the hostilities through dialogue. Trump’s efforts to organise a face-to-face meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin seem to have stalled. Putin on September 4 said he is still open to a meeting and invited Zelenskiy to come to Moscow, but Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin) rejected that offer out of hand.

In China, Fico told Putin that he wants normalised relations with Russia. Slovakia remains heavily dependent on Russian energy imports.

“Let’s go back to what used to be typical for countries when it comes to economic cooperation,” Fico told Putin, “for the safe and regular gas supplies that we receive through TurkStream,” alluding to the recent halts in oil imports via the Russian Druzhba oil pipeline for which Fico’s left-right government blamed Ukraine.

The approach by Putin via Fico comes as a coalition of the willing Paris summit on September 4 ended in failure after the top EU leaders called Trump at the end of the discussion to seek the White House’s support for their plan to send a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine if hostilities cease. Trump turned the tables on the COW leaders and berated them for continuing to import Russian oil and “funding the war.”

No details of the message delivered by Fico have leaked, but Putin has repeatedly said he wants a deal that deals with the “root causes” of the conflict and reflects the “realities on the ground. Analysts take that to mean Russia is seeking a wider reset of security arrangements in Europe that include not only security guarantees for Ukraine but for Russia as well. It also probably means that Putin wants western recognition of Russian sovereignty over the five occupied Ukrainian regions, a no-Nato guarantee from Ukraine and significant sanctions relief.

Energy row

Part of the discussions covered Slovakia's energy dependence on Russia that is causing friction with the EU that wants to wean itself off Russian oil and gas supplies completely

“America wants to seriously cut Russia’s income from energy exports — and that is the right path,” Zelenskiy said in a video address to an economic forum in Italy just before meeting Fico. “We will also discuss this issue with Fico.”

Following Fico’s meeting with Putin earlier in the week, he said his government is "extremely interested" in developing relations with Moscow and continuing to buy Russian oil and gas.

The two leaders also discussed the current efforts by the coalition of the willing to thrash out security guarantees for Ukraine and Zelenskiy claimed Slovakia "will not stand aside" while other European countries pledged post-war support. It is unclear what role Fico's government might play in those arrangements.

Zelenskiy also said that Slovakia supports Ukraine in its stalled EU accession bid in contrast to Hungary, which is actively blocking the process. Zelenskiy also said they talked about directions for bilateral cooperation in the economy, energy, and infrastructure. According to him, Slovakia will “not stay on the sidelines” and will “actively participate in the joint progress.”

“Slovakia supports Ukraine in its move toward the European Union. This is very significant. We also see that Ukraine and Moldova must continue moving together toward EU membership. It is also important that bilateral cooperation in economic, energy, and infrastructure matters here in our region strengthens our peoples, our countries,” Zelenskiy said in a statement.

 

Corruption scandal means Zelenskiy would likely lose a presidential election

Corruption scandal means Zelenskiy would likely lose a presidential election / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin December 26, 2025

The expanding Energoatom corruption scandal has hurt Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's popularity and if elections were held this weekend he would lose in the second round, according to a Socis poll.

A majority of Ukrainians believe Zelenskiy should face either criminal prosecution or political sanctions in connection with alleged corruption where his close friend and former business partner Timur Mindich ran a $100mn kickback scheme.

As part of the ongoing peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, both the Trump administration and the Kremlin are insisting that Zelenskiy organise fresh presidential elections as soon as possible after a ceasefire is called. Zelenskiy has said that he is willing to do so and in sign of how far the talks have progressed last week the Rada submitted a bill to organise elections while martial law is still in effect – something that is otherwise banned by Ukraine’s constitution.

In the nationwide survey, 30% of respondents said Zelenskiy should be tried in court for corruption, while an additional 28.4% supported imposing political bans that would prevent him from running in future elections. Taken together, the findings indicate a clear majority in favour of holding the president accountable.

The results reflect growing public dissatisfaction amid the Mindich corruption scandal, which has implicated figures close to the president. Two ministers have already resigned and the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, was forced to quit. According to the poll, 39% of Ukrainians believe Zelenskiy was directly involved in the scandal, while 29.3% believe he at least had knowledge of it.

Zelenskiy’s approval ratings were already under pressure after he tried to gut Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms on July 22 by forcing through Law 21414 on July 22 that would have put the main organs – National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) – under his personal control just as both bodies were zeroing in on corruption investigations in the president's inner circle that led to Mindich fleeing the country.

If presidential elections were held today, Zelenskiy and Ukraine’s former top general Valerii Zaluzhnyi, now the ambassador to the UK, would each receive roughly 30% of the vote in a first-round contest. However, Zelenskiy would be defeated in any likely runoff scenario.

In a hypothetical second round, Zaluzhnyi would defeat Zelenskiy by a wide margin: 64.2% to 35.8%, according to the poll.

Against another prominent military figure, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Zelenskiy would also lose, by 56.2% to 43.8%.

Budanov has overseen many military operations personally and recently launched a successful counter attack in the battle for Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub that supplies the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) defences for the entire frontline in eastern Ukraine. He has seen his popularity rise and is now one of the two top contenders to take over from Zelenskiy as president.

The Socis poll highlights the sharp political risks facing the president as the country navigates prolonged wartime governance, Western expectations for reform, and intensifying internal political rivalry.

 

Zelenskiy's U.S. Visit Sparks Political Firestorm

By RFE/RL staff - Sep 30, 2024

• Zelenskiy's visit to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, sparked controversy among Republicans, who viewed it as a partisan campaign event.
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• Trump and other Republicans have criticized US aid to Ukraine and suggested that Kyiv should negotiate with Russia.
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• The future of US support for Ukraine remains uncertain, with the outcome of the presidential election potentially having a significant impact on the war's trajectory.
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In 2020, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was dragged into the U.S. presidential election campaign. This time, just weeks before a vote that could have a massive influence on Kyiv's defense against the Russian invasion, he walked right into it.

On September 22, Zelenskiy toured a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that makes ammunition for his armed forces, thanking workers and signing one of the 155 mm shells that are crucial for Kyiv's war effort. He was joined by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and two members of the House of Representatives, all Democrats.

Had Zelenskiy visited the plant during any of his four previous trips to the United States since Russia launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, it might have been long forgotten by now.

Instead, it has turned into a flashpoint for Republicans, creating controversy that marred his the nearly weeklong visit to the United States, Ukraine's biggest backer, at a time when Russia is making gains on the battlefield, decimating Ukraine's energy infrastructure as winter approaches, and counting on Western support for Kyiv to wither.

Battleground

Scranton is President Joe Biden's hometown. Pennsylvania is a crucial battleground state whose voters could end up deciding the November 5 election between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

For Zelenskiy, the factory tour was meant "to demonstrate and show…that the assistance to Ukraine is beneficial to the United States itself, because this assistance makes it possible to create new jobs," Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the Ukrainian think tank New Europe Center and a nonresident senior fellow at the U.S.-based Atlantic Council Eurasia Center, told RFE/RL in Kyiv.

Trump, she said, apparently "perceived this as an attempt to…influence the electoral balance, which is very fragile in the state of Pennsylvania. That is, he saw it exclusively in the context of the election."

As Zelenskiy's U.S. trip continued with speeches at the United Nations and meetings with Biden and Harris at the White House, Republicans lashed out over the factory tour. The speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, called it "a partisan campaign event" and demanded Zelenskiy "immediately fire" his ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova.

Charles Kupchan, an analyst at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, said the munitions plant visit "backfired."

"It's more an indication of the polarized debate between Democrats and Republicans than it is about any missteps taken by Zelenskiy," he told RFE/RL.

'Much More Difficult'

Mykola Byelyeskov, an analyst at the Ukrainian government-backed National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv, suggested the U.S. election campaign makes navigating ties with Kyiv's most crucial backer particularly tricky.

"Zelenskiy is doing his best" on the U.S. trip, Byelyeskov told RFE/RL. "We see some results. I'm sure that we'll see more results. And we need to deal with every single faction in U.S. politics. And we are trying to do this. And it's much more difficult during the election season."

For Biden, it's also "very difficult to take radical steps that in his mind might bring the issue of escalation closer. Because all the surveys in the U.S., domestic ones, they say that the American population is indeed concerned with hypothetical nuclear escalation," he said. "That's why it makes it more difficult for Ukraine to argue for various things that we need."

During the visit, Zelenskiy did not secure a public promise that the United States would permit Kyiv to strike deeper into Russia with U.S. long-range missiles.

A group of Republicans in the House held up $61 billion in mostly military aid for Ukraine for six months, leading to a deficit of ammunition on the battlefield, in part on the grounds that the money could be better spent at home. The United States spends the majority of the aid money at home on restocking arms and equipment sent to Ukraine, and the trip to Scranton highlighted that fact.

Johnson had been instrumental in eventually getting the package through; his public ire over the plant visit signaled goodwill over that development is gone.

Kurt Volker, a Pennsylvania native who served as a special envoy to Ukraine under Trump in 2017-2019, called the timing of the factory tour "a huge mistake."

"It is a very sensitive time, a sensitive issue, a sensitive state -- like, the key swing state. It is just playing with fire, and Ukraine should do everything possible to avoid being a political subject in our election," said Volker, who is now an analyst at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington.

Way Back When

Lucian Kim, senior Ukraine analyst for the Crisis Group, called the visit a "misstep" on Zelenskiy's part that opened him up for criticism from opponents of aid for Ukraine within the Republican Party faction known as MAGA Republicans for their unyielding support for Trump and his policies.

"Bilateral U.S. support has been one of the foundations of Ukrainian foreign policy," Kim said. "That level of bipartisan support now seems to be in question. The MAGA wing, which is unsympathetic to Ukraine, is increasingly defining the Republican party."

The Pennsylvania plant visit was at last one factor raising doubts about an expected meeting between Zelenskiy and Trump -- whose relationship has been colored for years by a phone call in 2019, just months after the Ukrainian leader's election, that led to Trump's impeachment -- would take place.

Trump was impeached by the then-Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in December 2019 over the phone call in which he was accused of pressuring Zelenskiy to dig up dirt on the Biden family's activities in Ukraine. He was acquitted by the Senate, then controlled by the Republicans, in February 2020.

Trump took aim at Zelenskiy several times. At a campaign stop on September 25, he repeated his description of the Ukrainian president as "the greatest salesman in the world" -- a reference to the tens of billions of dollars in aid lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have approved since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

'Proposals For Surrender'

He also repeated his argument that Kyiv should have reached an agreement with Russia to stave off or end the invasion. "Any deal -- the worst deal -- would've been better than what we have now," he asserted. "If they made a bad deal, it would've been much better. They would've given up a little bit and everybody would be living."

Trump has said he would bring an end to Russia's war against Ukraine quickly if he is elected, several times saying it would happen even before the inauguration in January -- a claim he made again when he and Zelenskiy met in New York on September 27. He has not said how he would accomplish this, but his comments have raised concerns his efforts would involve exhorting Ukraine to hand territory to Russia.

On the main purposes of Zelenskiy's U.S. trip was to present Biden and others with a "victory plan" for the war against the Russian invasion, though details have not been released. Trump, in his debate against Harris on September 10, declined to answer directly when asked whether he wants Ukraine to win, saying, "I want the war to stop."

On September 26, Harris said suggestions that Kyiv should cede territory for the sake of peace are "dangerous and unacceptable." Such calls are "proposals for surrender," she said.

A Meeting In New York

In an interview with The New Yorker ahead of his U.S. visit, Zelenskiy said, "Trump doesn't really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how." He also said JD Vance, Trump's running mate, is "too radical" and has suggested he wants Ukraine "to give up our territories."

The atmosphere seemed warmer when Zelenskiy and Trump held talks at the Trump Tower in New York, with Trump praising Zelenskiy for his conduct during the impeachment process -- "he was a piece of steel" -- but there was no sign of a change in Trump's attitude toward the Russian invasion.

Trump again offered no details on how he would seek an end to the war, saying he believes that "we're going to get it resolved very quickly" if he wins the presidency. "If we have a win, I think long before January 20…we can work out something that's good for both sides this time," Trump said before the two sat down for the meeting.

"It's a shame but this is a war that should have never happened, and we'll get it solved," Trump said after the meeting. "It is a complicated puzzle.... Too many people dead."

In a Telegram post after what he called a “very meaningful meeting,” Zelenskiy said that he had presented his “victory plan” to Trump and that they “discussed used many details.”

"We have a common view that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. Putin cannot win. The Ukrainians must win," he said.

Whether Zelenskiy's visit will affect the outcome of the U.S. election is an open question.

"Foreign policy issues in general don't determine [U.S.] electoral outcomes. People vote on the economy, on immigration, on crime, what's on their radar screen on a day-to-day basis," Kupchan said.

And exactly how a win for Trump or for Harris might change the course of the war is also unclear.

Kupchan said that despite Trump's rhetoric, he will struggle to cut a deal with Putin if elected and likely end up approving aid for Ukraine.

"Trump would not want to be the American president who lost Ukraine. And so even if he gets elected and tries to negotiate an end game, he too is going to end up having to send support to Ukraine," he said.

By RFE/RL

 

General Zaluzhnyi attacks Zelenskiy’s administration in apparent bid for the presidency

Ukraine’s former commander in chief and now ambassador to the UK General Valerii Zaluzhnyi lashed out at the Zelenskiy administration in what could be the start of a bid to take over as president as the president comes under increasing pressure due to an escalating corruption scandal. / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin December 1, 2025

Ukraine’s former commander in chief and now ambassador to the UK General Valerii Zaluzhnyi lashed out at the Zelenskiy administration in what appears to be the start of a bid to take over as president.

The well-liked Zaluzhnyi was sacked by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last year following the failure of the 2023 summer offensive which he described as bringing the war to a stalemate. However, it is widely believed that Zelenskiy removed Zaluzhnyi after he overtook the president in the polls.

Zaluzhnyi took the unusual step of publishing a critical opinion piece in the UK’s Telegraph titled “How to defeat Putin and build a better Ukraine”, as well as posting similar remarks on social media the same day.

The criticism comes at a sensitive time for Zelenskiy, who is embroiled in the largest corruption scandal of his career, after his former business partner Timur Mindich was accused by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) of masterminding a $100mn kick-back scheme at the state-owned utility company Energoatom. Mindich skipped the country only hours before NABU raided his office and home, where a solid gold toilet was discovered as well as packs of hundreds of thousands of euros and dollars.

The corruption scandal has been expanding and claimed the powerful éminence grise of Ukraine on November 28, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office and Zelenskiy closest advisor.

Yermak resigned after NABU searched his home and office. He has since said he will enlist and go to the frontline. Critics have pointed out that if Yermak enlists the relevant authority in charge of investigating crimes committed by soldiers is the State Bureau of Investigation and technically the investigation by NABU will have to be transferred to the State Bureau of Investigation, which reports to the president. NABU is entirely independent of the government and president and has its own independent Anti-Corruption Court (ACC) to prosecute high officials.

The Zaluzhny attack accused the Zelenskiy’s administration of not being able to define the political goal of Ukraine’s war efforts.

“He goes on to define the goal in even more radical terms than Zelenskiy ever defined it - a full destruction of the “Russian empire”. Also, he conveniently ignores the fact that Ukraine’s political goals had to shift when he failed to deliver a victorious counter-offensive in 2023 as Ukraine’s commander-in-chief,” journalist and bne IntelliNews columnist Leonid Ragozin said in a comment.

“More than anything, the article sells Zaluzhny himself as a leader who - unlike Zelenskiy - understands war and grand political strategy. A clear presidential pitch, Ragozin added.

The wartime trinity

“War cannot be waged effectively without a clear political goal. After all, war is not an end in itself, it is waged for political goals. Russia has long ago defined its goal as the destruction of Ukraine as an independent state,” Zaluzhnyi said in a social media post. “Ukraine's political goal in the Russian-Ukrainian war should be formed on the basis of such challenges. And the basis of such a goal should be to deprive Russia of opportunities for aggression against Ukraine in the foreseeable future.”

In a detailed conversation with the Ukrainian publication Liga.net, Zaluzhnyi gave more details of his objections to Zelenskiy's war strategy.

The philosophical framing of the criticism suggests that Zelenskiy has not understood the nature of war and its political problems, whereas he, Zaluzhnyi, does understand this problem and by implication is better suited to lead the country.

“The political purpose of war is what answers all questions. It is this term that makes it possible to see not only what the enemy is doing, but also how to move forward ourselves. And if, according to the [military analyst] Clausewitz, war is a "trinity": the population, the armed forces and the state administration, then these aspects are three different codes of laws and among these parties, it is the population that is the most sensitive party in terms of supporting the war,” Zaluzhnyi said.

“Without public support, it is impossible to wage a war successfully. Then perhaps the main form of such public support is the attitude of society, first of all, to mobilisation, which quickly began to fail,” Zaluzhnyi added.

Immediately after the Russian invasion, the government imposed martial law and began an aggressive and highly unpopular mandatory conscription drive. Military police officers have been grabbing men from the street and throwing them into buses before they are sent to the frontline.

Zaluzhnyi goes on to argue that Russia has managed to marshal all three elements of Clausewitz’s trinity and is well prepared for a long war should the current peace negations with the US fail. Ukraine, however, continues to suffer from its trinity of problems: the lack of men, money and materiel. More stingingly, Zaluzhnyi accuses Zelenskiy of having no clear political goal in the war.

“War does not always end with the victory of one side and the defeat of the other. We Ukrainians strive for complete victory, but we cannot reject the option of a long-term end to the war. Peace, even in anticipation of the next war, provides a chance for political change, for deep reforms, for full recovery, economic growth and the return of citizens,” Zaluzhnyi said on social media in what appears to be a political agenda for a post-war recovery in Ukraine.

“It is even possible to speak about the beginning of the formation of a safe, protected state through innovation and technology; of strengthening the foundations of justice through the fight against corruption and the creation of an honest court system; and of economic development, including on the basis of international economic recovery programmes,” he added.

Ukrainian Corruption Investigation Reveals Derkach’s Role – Analysis



File photo of Andrei Derkach. Photo: Andriy Derkach / Telegram

December 2, 2025 
By Dr. Taras Kuzio


A high-level corruption scandal has been roiling Ukraine’s domestic politics and undermining trust in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The scandal follows the president’s attempts in July to remove the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor (SAPO), which have been investigating this corruption case since last year (Zmina, July 31).

Russia’s long-term involvement in Ukraine’s economy allowed it to collect kompromat (компромат, compromising material) on Ukrainian elites, sow internal strife to undermine national unity and morale in the army, and collect intelligence on Ukraine’s air defenses (Argument, November 13). Some of the funds stolen in the corruption scandal were meant to build defenses for Ukrainian utilities.

In November, evidence released by the NABU showed that $100 million from contracts for nuclear facility protection that was reported to have been stolen was laundered at a central Kyiv office owned by the family of Andrei Derkach, a former Ukrainian member of parliament and current Russian senator (NABU, November 10; Euromaidan Press, November 11). Ihor Myronyuk, an aide to Derkach for over a decade, handled the cash for the corruption scheme (Euromaidan Press, November 11). At least $2 million of the stolen funds were transferred to Derkach. NABU detectives found items in the office labeled “Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation” (Euromaidan Press, November 11).

Derkach grew up in a Committee for State Security (KGB) family during the Soviet Union (Liga.net, November 12). His father, Leonid, worked in the Soviet Ukrainian KGB from 1972—when a major pogrom targeting Ukrainian dissent and culture took place—until the Soviet Union’s collapse in late 1991 to early 1992. Leonid Derkach then served as chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) from 1998 to 2001. He was removed from the SBU over the scandal surrounding the murder of journalist Georgi Gongadze in the fall of 2000, and after a July 2000 recording showed his involvement in the sale of four Kolchuga radars to Iraq, which was under international sanctions at that time (Maidan.org.ua, February 19, 2001; Ukrainska Pravda, May 22, 2002).

Andrei Derkach served with the Soviet KGB and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow from 1990 until 1993. He was then a parliamentary deputy for the pro-presidential For a United Ukraine, Socialist Party, Party of Regions, and one of its successors, Will of the People. He owned ERA TV and Radio and the Russian-language newspaper Kievskij Telegraf (Kyiv Telegraph), named after a newspaper published in Kyiv from 1859 to 1876.

The Yuliya Tymoshenko government appointed Derkach as president of Energoatom in 2006. Since then, he has maintained a network of corrupt allies with ties to Russia inside Ukraine’s nuclear power sector. This, as seen in the explosive corruption scandal, was undertaken on behalf of Russia (Liga.net, November 14). For years, Ukraine’s entire nuclear energy sector was under the complete control of an FSB agent network, created by Derkach back in 2006 (Argument, November 13). He attempted to consolidate Ukraine’s nuclear industry into the Kremlin’s structures (Liga.net, November 14).



Throughout the last two decades, U.S. intelligence has been ahead of the SBU in monitoring Derkach’s ties to Russian intelligence. In September 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department accused Derkach of being an active Russian agent for over a decade (U.S. Treasury Department, September 10, 2020).

Despite former Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Presidential Administration Andriy Yermak promising tough measures against Ukrainians who had interfered in the 2020 U.S. election, the U.S. sanctions against Derkach led to no criminal charges (Kyiv Post, January 13, 2021; Radio Svoboda, August 20, 2021). Derkach fled to Russia only after Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After fleeing, Derkach received Russian citizenship and has lived in Astrakhan. In fall 2024, he became a senator in Russia’s Federation Council and a member of its Defense Committee (Hromadske.ua, November 14, 2024).

Five months after he fled Ukraine, the SBU accused Derkach of receiving $3–4 million per month from the Russian Military Intelligence Agency (GRU) to create private security companies to assist Russian invasion forces (Kyiv Independent, September 16, 2024). Inform Napalm, a Ukrainian non-governmental organization (NGO) that has investigated Russian disinformation since 2014, concluded that Russia controlled Derkach’s operation in the United States (Inform Napalm, February 15, 2021). The Kremlin’s goals were to worsen U.S.–Ukrainian relations, end U.S. military support for Ukraine, foil former U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, and portray Ukraine as a U.S. puppet state (Ukrainska Pravda, October 9, 2019).

An additional goal was to fabricate evidence of Zelenskyy’s supposed personal vendetta against former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and sow political instability in Ukraine. In May 2020, Derkach released tapes in four batches, including doctored conversations between Poroshenko and Biden. Zelenskyy quickly ordered criminal charges of treason against Poroshenko (Zerkalo Nedeli, May 24, 2020). The tapes allegedly showed high-level corruption in Ukraine under Poroshenko and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv’s control over the Ukrainian president, government, and NABU (Ukrainska Pravda, October 9, 2019). The fake tapes and the NABU-leaks.com website claimed Biden had tried to halt Ukraine’s investigation into the gas company Burisma, where his son, Hunter, was a consultant.

In July 2022, Derkach’s head bodyguard was detained together with a large amount of cash, weapons, and pro-Russian literature (Ukrainska Pravda, July 27, 2022). In September 2022, the NABU and SAPO charged Derkach in absentia with high treason and illicit enrichment. In 2023, Derkach was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship (President of Ukraine, January 10, 2023). In November 2023, the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) accused Derkach, Servant of the People Deputy Oleksandr Dubinsky, and former General Prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk of working for the GRU (Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation, November 13, 2023). At the same time, a federal indictment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York was issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), accusing Derkach of bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Derkach had purchased condos in Beverley Hills using shell companies to hide ownership and move millions of dollars (U.S. Justice Department, December 7, 2022).
Derkach’s Corruption Network

The SBU, which has a history of success in uncovering spies, seemingly allowed a Russian agent to operate in the Ukrainian parliament for twelve years. This was only possible because, as Holos (Voice) Party deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak stated, Derkach’s corrupt network had high-level protection (in criminal slang, a krysha [крышa; roof]), which meant he and his allies were virtually untouchable (Kyiv Post, November 11). For example, in November 2020, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktov refused to open criminal cases against Derkach and Dubinsky for treason and money laundering (Ukrainska Pravda, November 3, 2020). Timur Mindich, head of the corruption conspiracy, ran an illegal diamond business in Russia and Ukraine from 2015 to 2024 (Zerkalo Nedeli, October 23). Ukraine only launched criminal action against Derkach and Mindich after they had been allowed to flee from Ukraine. Mindich’s whereabouts are unconfirmed, but he is most likely to be in Israel, where he holds a second citizenship.

Derkach’s May 2019–2020 network included pro-Russian politician Anatoly Shariy; businessman Taras Kozak; the wife of Viktor Medvedchuk and owner of a Crimean gas company, Oksana Marchenko; former President Viktor Yanukovych’s legal assistant Andrei Portnov; oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky; and pro-Russian Nash (Ours) TV journalist Nazar Diorditsa. Portnov was assassinated in Madrid in May (Kyiv Independent, May 22).

The intermediary in the conspiracy was Dmytro Firtash. The United States has sought to extradite Firtash from Austria since 2014 for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in a titanium mine in India, some of whose exports were to be sold to a Chicago company. After Firtash’s arrest in 2014, his bail was paid by the head of Russia’s judo association, which has close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin (Profil.at, October 23, 2019). Firtash had been Russia’s representative in Ukraine since the late 1990s, tasked with buying up strategic sectors of Ukraine’s economy on behalf of the Kremlin (seeEDM, July 26, 2010).

In 2017, Spain issued an additional extradition request over Firtash’s ties to Russian organized crime operating in the country. In 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Firtash of being in the “upper echelon associates of Russian organized crime,” a reference to his ties to mobster Semyon Mogilevich, who is on a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wanted list. Firtash had told then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor as far back as 2008 of his links to Mogilevich (Wikileaks, December 10, 2008).

Mindich was the youngest partner of oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, whose TV channel 1+1 was hostile to Poroshenko because of the removal of Kolomoysky’s control over UkrNafta state oil company in 2015 and the nationalization of Privat Bank in 2016. Kolomoysky was Zelenskyy’s main backer in the 2019 elections against Poroshenko. Ukraine only detained Kolomoysky in September 2023 on money laundering charges at Privat Bank, eighteen months after the U.S. Department of Justice opened charges of embezzlement and fraud (U.S. Department of Justice, January 20, 2022).

Mindich is a co-owner of the Kvartal 95 television production company with Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy’s birthday was celebrated in Mindich’s Kyiv apartment in January 2021. In November of that year, Mindich attended Yermak’s birthday party in the presidential residence in western Ukraine (Euromaidan Press, November 12). Zelenskyy and his former Chief of Staff, Yermak, promised a full investigation. The main opposition party, led by Poroshenko, called for a government of national unity staffed by technocrats (European Solidarity, November 11).

The root of the corruption scandal lies in the president’s office providing a krysha. Investigation of high-level corruption is prevented because the president controls the SBU and the Prosecutor General’s Office. The NABU and SAPO, established under Poroshenko, are independent of the president, which is likely why Zelenskyy sought to curtail their operational independence. To avoid future scandals and conflicts of interest, the SBU and Prosecutor General’s Office should gain the same level of independence from the president as the NABU and SAPO. 

This article was published by The Jamestown Foundation

Dr. Taras Kuzio

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. He is co-author of The Four Roots of Russia’s War Against Ukraine (Cambridge University Press, 2026); co-editor of Russia and Modern Fascism: New Perspectives on the Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine (Columbia University Press, 2025); Crimea: Where Russia’s War Started and Where Ukraine Will Win (Jamestown Foundation, 2024), and Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (Routledge, 2022). He can be found on X/Twitter @TarasKuzio