Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Bureau and Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office were prepared for possible searches in advance

Senior officials from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) were worried that after the scandal with the Bureau of Economic Security, the next searches could target NABU and SAPO.

Source: Ukrainska Pravda article Anti-Corruption Special Operation. What is behind the searches in National Anti-Corruption Bureau

Quote from the article: "Back on 10 July, Ukrainska Pravda had a conversation with some high-ranking NABU and SAPO officials, during which they said that ‘if the public fails to press for the end of the Bureau of Economic Security competition, then the next target will be NABU and SAPO’."

Details: Ukrainska Pravda sources in the prosecutor's office say that immediately after the new Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko was appointed, he demanded all the case files involving people from the NABU and the SAPO. A separate group of prosecutors promptly studied this, and at the same time, "media preparation for the action against NABU" was taking place.

The authors of the article note that a week after the above-mentioned conversation, on 17 July, the new Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko made it clear in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) that the winner of the competition for the head of the Bureau of Economic Security would not be appointed.

The NABU employees were searched four days later, on 21 July.

The journalists emphasise that if at least some accusations made by the Security Service of Ukraine regarding ties of NABU representatives with Russia are true, then the bureau's leadership should be interested in "cleaning out the Russian sleeper agents from its structure and catching "moles" but so far it looks like the "discrediting component" is one of the key ones in this story.

"When the ‘big expose’ involves cases of road accidents that have been under investigation for four years, it seems that the aim is to create the effect of a massive action and paralysis of work for as many Bureau employees as possible," the article says.

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