Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies have accused a sitting MP, a former MP and at least two senior officials from the Presidential Office of running an organised scheme to seize companies and property with forged documents.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) set out the allegations in a video released on their Telegram channels on August 20, under the codename “Femida” (Themis). It follows a notification of suspicion served on August 19 under articles 191, 206-2, 358 and 361 of Ukraine's criminal code, covering misappropriation, unlawful takeover of a company, forgery and unauthorised interference with computer systems that were served on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s deputy head of staff, Iryna Mudra.

Iryna Mudra, deputy head of the President's Office, has been photographed wearing extremely expensive jewellery and watches while on the job. Source: @panchenko.

The alleged mechanism was administrative rather than violent. Hackers posing as state registrars are said to have entered the register of legal entities and filed forged documents transferring ownership from the real owners to front men who were, according to the agencies, bodyguards of one of the organisers. Company assets seized this way in the autumn of 2025 exceeded UAH248mn ($5.5mn), the agencies say, and in May 2026 the group is alleged to have tried to take Kyiv properties worth more than UAH207mn ($4.6mn).

Raiding is the oldest crime in the post-Soviet corporate playbook, but the normally conducted by organised criminal groups or even legitimate. The fact that this scheme was organised by people working in the office of the president of Ukraine is highly unusual. The fresh scandal will only add to concerns about runaway corruption in Bankova in the midst of the metastasizing $100mn kickback scam at the state utility Energoatom corruption scandal.

The case arrives while parliament and the Bankova are already at odds over who controls the anti-corruption agencies and will only fuel the growing domestic political crisis Zelenskiy is facing as his authority with his own Servant of the People (SOTP) party is being undermined by the corruption allegations. Zelenskiy himself has not been accused of corruption, but under the Ukrainian constitution NABU is barred from investigating a sitting president.

The new scandal will also undermine support for Ukraine in Brussels which downgraded Ukraine to “B” in its latest EU accession bid progress report for backsliding on corruption targets.

NABU named the alleged perpetrators as cited by Ekonomichna Pravda:

Iryna Mudra was, until August 19, deputy head of the President's Office, where her portfolio covered judicial and legal reform, the push for a special tribunal for Russia and the international mechanism to compensate Ukraine for war damage. She was searched on the morning of August 19 and dismissed by presidential decree that afternoon.

Viktor Dubovyk is director-general of the legal policy directorate at the President's Office.

Olena Ferens is deputy justice minister. The agencies say the group leaned on senior Justice Ministry officials to keep control of the companies it had seized, and that some of those approached refused.

Maksym Mykytas is a former MP, and it was his bail hearing that produced the list. Four of the other names are described as his subordinates, associates or staff. The High Anti-Corruption Court was due to set his pre-trial restriction on August 20.

Vadym Stolar is a sitting MP, elected for the now-banned Opposition Platform - For Life, whose Kyiv branch he ran from 2019 to 2022. He has featured in a series of journalistic investigations into construction in the capital. He confirmed NABU had searched his home and said he was cooperating openly with law enforcement.

Vasyl Astion is a businessman and a former member of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Council.

Mykola Hladyshenko is the suspended chair of the supervisory board of Sense Bank, the lender the state took over in 2023. National Bank of Ukraine governor Andrii Pyshnyi is seeking to strip him of his powers, with the rest of the board also at risk.

Oleh Stupak is chair of Sense Bank's management board and the bank's chief executive.

Liudmyla Snihur heads a department at Sense Bank.

Valentyn Yelizarov is a Mykytas subordinate and head of Metrobud LLC.

Mykyta Tarkovskyi is described only as linked to Mykytas.

Yehor Merkulov is Mykytas's driver and the nominal head of Montage Service LLC.

Oleksandr Ostapenko is Mykytas's bodyguard and the nominal director of Philosophy Development LLC - one of the front men the agencies say the forged ownership documents transferred companies to.

Manipulating the machine

NABU Aware that dispossessed owners might go to the police, the organisers are said to have arranged for a criminal case to be opened on a complaint from people under their control and for the seized companies' corporate rights to be placed under arrest, making any further registration action impossible.

Where the register would not do the work, the courts did. The agencies describe fictitious debts created to trigger bankruptcy proceedings in a commercial court, and at least one case of real estate in central Kyiv seized on the strength of a forged court ruling entered into the property register by hackers.

Not everyone approached went along with it. Justice Ministry officials "aware of the consequences of carrying out the illegal instructions of the deputy head of the Presidential Office, refused to take part in the crime," the video says, and that particular attempt failed.

The financing is specific. A co-organiser and sitting member of parliament put at least $514,000 into the operation, according to the investigation, spent on paying hackers and on court proceedings, described by the agencies as illegal benefits to law enforcement and judicial bodies.

The NABU video carries fragments of intercepted conversations. One voice, which Interfax-Ukraine reports resembles that of Mudra is heard saying in Russian: "I've basically talked myself into a criminal charge, you understand?"

Another fragment attributed to the same voice said plainly: "Corruption needs to be systematized and controlled… it shouldn't be fought, it should be controlled." Elsewhere on the recordings the suspects complain that they cannot get information out of NABU and SAPO, and discuss how the anti-corruption system might be brought under control.

This is the second wave of NABU disclosures in as many days, following videos codenamed "Forrest Gump" and "Femida" on money laundering and raiding involving senior officials. It also follows a year in which corruption convictions fell and custodial sentences all but disappeared.

The most high profile official to be caught up in the corruption allegations is head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, who largely ran the government for Zelenskiy until he was forced to quit after he was named in the Energoatom scandal. He was later released on bail as the corruption and money laundering investigation intensified scrutiny of Kyiv’s anti-corruption drive at a sensitive moment for the country. He pledged to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and go to the frontline, but according to reports remains in Kyiv and politically active.