Fifty-nine Ukrainian non-governmental organizations have issued a joint call to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding an investigation of an anti-corruption campaigner that has provoked widespread outrage.
The groups issued an open letter on July 15 as Vitaliy Shabunin, one of Ukraine’s most prominent activists on corruption issues, was due in court.
According to Ukrainian investigators, he’s suspected of systematically evading military service while claiming army pay worth $1,200 per month and illegally using a military vehicle.
“We emphasize that this procedural action is in no way related to his professional activities,” investigators said.
But the case has reignited concern that Ukraine’s deep-rooted problems with corruption are not being tackled, with efforts to promote accountability and transparency facing pushback from powerful vested interests.
Shabunin was mobilized in 2022, and is accused of failing to appear “at the place of duty for a long period and, under the guise of ‘business trips,’ was in civilian institutions that are not part of the defense forces.”
He is also charged with taking a monthly cash allowance given to soldiers “despite his actual absence from the military unit.”
However, Shabunin’s supporters, including his the Anti-Corruption Center (ACC), note that he was absent from his unit because he was seconded to work on an official government anti-corruption body.
“The investigator’s accusations are absolutely absurd, since Vitaliy was seconded to the [National Agency for Corruption Prevention] NACP in accordance with an order that, as a soldier, he simply could not fail to obey,” the ACC said.
Shabunin himself has called the case “a step on the path to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s corrupt authoritarianism,” while even a lawmaker from Zelenskyy’s own party, Anastasia Radina, described the case as a “selective miscarriage of justice.”
The statement calling for Zelenskyy to intervene in the case was signed by respected civil society groups and journalists’ organizations, including the Zmina Human Rights Center, Transparency, International Ukraine, and the Bihus investigative unit.
It says the case results from either “complete incompetence of officials” or a “targeted attack aimed at putting pressure on Vitaliy Shabunin, who, while serving in the military, continued to criticize the work of state bodies.”
Olha Aivazovska, board chairwoman at Opora, a Kyiv-based civil rights group that also signed the letter, said campaigning for transparency had made Shabunin many enemies in the political establishment.
Investigators said Shabunin could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the charges.
Critics have pointed to what they see as double standards, with investigators going after someone accused of low-level wrongdoing while big fish remain untouched.
News outlet Ukrainska Pravda contrasted Shabunin’s treatment with that of Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, who was charged with corruption on June 23. Investigators said he caused losses to the state of nearly 350,000 dollars.
“Not only did he not lose his position or was not suspended from his work, but he has also been publicly participating in the work of the international conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine in Rome,” it wrote.
Zelenskyy’s office has not so far publicly commented on the case. It’s potentially embarrassing for someone who originally ran for president on an anti-corruption ticket.
With Western aid pouring into Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, suggestions that corruption campaigners are being targeted are highly sensitive to Ukraine’s administration.
While public opinion has rallied behind Zelenskyy’s wartime leadership, corruption has been stubbornly persistent, with a series of scandals in recent years involving the Defense Ministry, national prosecutors, and wealthy businessmen.
Underlining the point, Yehor Firsov, a former lawmaker and activist who now serves in the army, wrote that “what happened looks like an outright political persecution” while Ukrainians were fighting a war against Russia “to preserve democracy and freedom.”
The July 15 court hearing was scheduled following a search at Shabunin’s Kyiv home four days earlier, in which investigators seized phones and tablets belonging to him, his wife, and two children. A search was also carried out at an address near Kharkiv, where he was serving in the military.
The ACC said the searches were conducted without the necessary court orders.
“The goal is simple – to undermine our activities to expose government corruption. Therefore, we expect further provocations,” Shabunin said.
The 40-year-old has often faced heavy-handed pushback for his work.
In 2020, his home was burned down in a suspected arson attack. In 2018, he suffered chemical burns when attackers threw a green antiseptic in his face as he took part in a demonstration outside a prosecutor’s office in Kyiv.
