November heard that Russia is prepared to resume peace negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul, but this looks more like an invitation to sign a surrender than a genuine offer to end the war.
Every day, Russian forces push deeper into the eastern Ukrainian cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, while Ukraine’s top military commander has conceded that the army’s situation has “significantly worsened” in parts of the southern Zaporizhia region. Military observers have noted a thinning of Ukraine’s front lines due to a severe shortage of soldiers and massive Russian drone superiority, which has led to further territorial losses.
This seems like the worst possible moment for the most damaging corruption scandal of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidency, which erupted this week. Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies revealed on Monday that some of Zelenskyy’s close associates were involved in a plot to skim around $100 million from the state’s energy sector — at a time when Ukrainians are suffering blackouts caused by Russian bombing.
So far, investigators claim to have established the involvement of Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko, Timur Mindich — a film producer and co-owner of President Zelenskyy’s Kvartal 95 production company — and then–Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov.
Claiming that they had spent tens of millions of euros to protect energy infrastructure from drones and missiles, energy officials allegedly pocketed the money — literally taking bags of cash. And these are just the first public results of a probe that lasted 15 months and included 1,000 hours of wiretapping.
The first figure removed from the political chessboard was Justice Minister Halushchenko, who was dismissed from office — and this appears to be only the beginning of the campaign launched by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) against what it describes as a “high-level criminal organisation” influencing strategic state enterprises.
The alleged ringleader, Timur Mindich, co-owner of the television studio that was instrumental in the president’s early career as an entertainer, and Serhiy Pushkar, a member of the state energy regulation commission, left Ukraine on 11 November. They have not yet been charged.
In his address, President Zelenskyy tried to frame the scandal as proof that the Ukrainian government is fighting corruption, but the argument did not sound convincing — especially just four months after he signed measures that would have brought NABU and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office under the oversight of the Prosecutor General. After major protests, including in Kyiv, Zelenskyy was forced to reverse the measures, but his position lingered in the memory. He does not appear to be Ukraine’s leading champion against corruption.
“It’s in the president’s best interests now to bring Mindich back, even if it means literally carrying him in the trunk. Otherwise, it will become his personal responsibility,” wrote well-known Ukrainian blogger Ihor Lachenkov.
A time bomb for the Ukrainian government may be the origin of the money confiscated by NABU during the searches. Each package contained one million dollars — 10,000 $100 bills — with U.S. Federal Reserve Bank markings in special wrappers with barcodes.
Officially, the United States has spent a total of $130.6 billion on Ukraine between 24 January 2022 and 30 June 2025, according to the Kiel Institute, a Germany-based think tank that tracks international support for Ukraine. However, the U.S. President has repeatedly mentioned an amount almost three times higher. In one interview he said:
We’ve spent 350 billion (…) whether it’s 300 or 350 billion, nobody really knows. They can’t even tell me the answer — which probably means more than that.
An indirect confirmation of his words seemed to surface in a cruel joke played by the Russian pranksters Vovan (Vladimir Kuznetsov) and Lexus (Alexei Stolyarov), who released a recording of a prank call with Samantha Power, the former U.S. Ambassador to the UN and head of USAID. Believing she was speaking to a former Ukrainian president, Power allegedly said that since 2022 the U.S. has been providing Ukraine with around $1.5 billion in cash every month.
Of course, information obtained this way is not officially confirmed and cannot be considered reliable. But taken together, these events — linked into a single, disturbing tangle — are fuelling outrage in Ukrainian society and undermining the morale of its defenders.
How many people will want to defend a government if it is pocketing money behind their backs?
If the latest … investigation leads to no legal action against the suspects, it could spark a huge wave of public anger
Ukraine faces “huge problems” finding soldiers as men flee abroad, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an interview with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, published against the backdrop of the scandal surrounding Mindich and his associates. And he is not alone in acknowledging the toll that nearly four years of war has taken on Ukraine’s capacity to replenish its ranks.
For a long time, there was an unspoken taboo in Ukraine against criticising Zelenskyy’s entourage — and especially the president himself. But if the latest NABU investigation leads to no legal action against the suspects, it could spark a huge wave of public anger.
The recent protests that brought people into the streets were dubbed the “Cardboard Maidan” — a reference to the 2013 Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv’s main square. Back in July 2025, demonstrators held cardboard signs with anti-government slogans.
What will they take into their hands now, in a country at war, overflowing with weapons? The government must take a stand against corruption and it must take it now.
