Ukraine’s ex-energy minister arrested whereas trying to depart nation | EUROtoday

Ukraine’s anti-corruption company accused an ex-energy minister on Monday of laundering hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of kickbacks in a corruption case that has shaken the wartime authorities, a day after he was detained attempting to depart the nation.

Herman Halushchenko, who served as power minister from 2021-2025 after which briefly as justice minister till he resigned over the scandal final 12 months, turned one of the crucial senior officers detained within the ‘Midas’ case, over an alleged $100m (£73.5m) kickback scheme on the state nuclear firm.

The case has ensnared senior officers and members of Ukraine’s enterprise elite – together with a former shut affiliate of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from his pre-political media profession – and brought on concern amongst Kyiv’s Western allies.

Mr Halushchenko, who can be being named in media stories as German Galushchenko, “was exposed for money laundering and participation in a criminal organisation” by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and its prosecuting sister company SAPO, in response to an announcement from NABU.

It stated greater than $7m (£5.1m) had been transferred to international accounts naming Mr Halushchenko’s spouse and 4 youngsters as beneficiaries. Some was spent on educating the youngsters at elite colleges in Switzerland, and a few had been positioned in “a deposit, from which the family of the high-ranking official received additional income and spent it on their own needs”.

Mr Halushchenko has denied wrongdoing. There was no reply to a message despatched to him searching for remark.

NABU had stated on Sunday that Mr Halushchenko was detained “while crossing the state border”, with out specifying the place the arrest happened.

Prosecutors say contributors within the Midas scheme squeezed nuclear firm Energoatom’s contractors for bribes to finish tasks, together with buildings to guard power amenities from Russian airstrikes.

They had beforehand stated the plot was organised by a former affiliate of Mr Zelensky, Timur Mindich, who fled to Israel earlier than he might be arrested in November. Mr Mindich, who based the TV studio behind the hit sitcom that introduced the president fame as an actor earlier than he entered politics, has denied wrongdoing.

A former deputy prime minister was arrested in November and NABU has stated different former senior officers are underneath investigation.

The case sparked a political scandal final 12 months that led to the ouster of president Zelensky’s chief of workers, Andriy Yermak, and fuelled new public anger at lingering corruption as Ukraine fights Russia in its four-year conflict.

Mr Zelensky had tried to restrict the independence of the anti-corruption businesses final 12 months earlier than reversing it within the face of public protests and strain from Western allies.

Energoatom CEO Pavlo Kovtoniuk stated final week that the corporate had taken quite a lot of steps to stop the recurrence of corruption schemes sooner or later.

Battling corruption is a key precedence in Ukraine’s reform effort because it eyes membership of the European Union, which requires the nation shake off the decades-old scourge of graft.