Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities said on Saturday they had uncovered a large-scale corruption scheme in which military drones and signal jamming systems were purchased at inflated prices, two days after the agencies' independence was restored following major protests, Reuters reports.
The independence of Ukraine's anti-corruption investigators and prosecutors, NABU and SAPO, was restored by parliament on Thursday after an attempt to strip it of its independence led to the country's biggest demonstrations since the Russian invasion in 2022.
In a statement published by the two agencies on social media, NABU and SAPO said they had captured a sitting lawmaker, two local officials and an unspecified number of National Guard personnel to take bribes. None of them were identified in the statement.
"The essence of the scheme was to award government contracts to supplier companies at deliberately inflated prices," the statement said, adding that the perpetrators received bribes of up to 30% of the contract value. Four people have been arrested.
"There can only be zero tolerance for corruption, clear teamwork to expose corruption and, as a result, a fair verdict," President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
Zelensky, who has had broad presidential powers since wartime and still enjoys widespread approval among Ukrainians, was forced to make a rare political U-turn when his attempt to place NABU and SAP under the control of his prosecutor general sparked the first nationwide protests of the war.
Zelensky subsequently said he had heard the people's anger and introduced a bill restoring the agencies' previous independence, which was voted on by parliament on Thursday.
Ukraine's European allies praised the move after expressing concerns about the agencies' initial revocation of their status.
Senior European officials had told Zelensky that Ukraine jeopardizes its bid for European Union membership by limiting the powers of its anti-corruption bodies.
"It is important that anti-corruption institutions act independently, and the law adopted on Thursday guarantees them every opportunity to truly fight corruption," Zelensky wrote on Saturday after a meeting with agency heads who briefed him on the latest investigation.