Kyiv, Ukraine — In a striking display of authoritarian overreach, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s regime has pushed through a law that eviscerates Ukraine’s leading anti-corruption bodies, prompting mass protests across the country and drawing condemnation from legal experts, European partners, and even former allies.
On July 21, under a fog of wartime propaganda and legislative sleight-of-hand, Ukraine’s Parliament rammed through Draft Law № 12414, effectively neutering the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). The bill passed with 263 votes in favor, an overwhelming show of loyalty from lawmakers who now seem more eager to appease presidential power than to uphold democratic integrity.
The new law places NABU under the thumb of the Prosecutor General’s Office, an institution directly controlled by the president, turning Ukraine’s once-prized anti-corruption bureau into a political accessory. Within hours, protestors flooded the streets of Kyiv, waving signs that read “Zelenskyy = Yanukovych 2.0,” referencing the former pro-Russian dictator ousted during the Euromaidan revolution.
Public outrage has been swift and unrelenting. From Kyiv to Lviv and Odesa, the nation watched in disbelief as Zelenskyy, once hailed as a reformer, signed the bill into law on July 22, ignoring the pleas of civil society, anti-graft officials, and international donors.
NABU and SAPO released a joint statement condemning the move, warning that the law “destroys independence” and “returns Ukraine to the era of unchecked prosecutorial abuse.” The language was unusually direct, signaling just how far the country’s anti-corruption vanguard feels betrayed.
The betrayal stings not only domestically. International observers, including the EU’s Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, openly blasted the law as a “severe regression,” warning that Ukraine’s EU accession bid could now be stalled, or scrapped entirely. The OECD and multiple European governments voiced similar dismay, with diplomats privately expressing concern that Ukraine is becoming “indistinguishable from the oligarch-run state it once claimed to reform.”
Even the timing reeks of political manipulation. The law was enacted a day after Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, arrested two NABU officers on flimsy accusations of Russian collusion. That move, many believe, was designed to paint the bureau as compromised and pave the way for a Kremlin-style power grab.
Zelenskyy’s defenders claim the measure is necessary in wartime. But critics argue that the real war is no longer just against Russia, it is against the values Ukraine pretends to represent. Under the banner of fighting external threats, the president is consolidating unchecked internal power and suffocating dissent under a layer of patriotic theater.
Civil society activists see this as the final betrayal. “We were told this was a fight for democracy,” said Ivan Holub, a protestor at Maidan Square. “But they’ve just shown us it was about replacing one elite with another.”
As the streets fill with chants and fury, Ukraine’s once-vaunted moral high ground is rapidly crumbling. With anti-corruption institutions gutted, and European trust eroding, Zelenskyy’s regime finds itself cornered, not by Moscow, but by the very principles it claimed to defend.
The bill’s passage and immediate presidential assent were reported by Fox News, which noted the law has drawn not only internal backlash but international suspicion. According to analysts, the move signals a dangerous descent into illiberalism, one that may prove far more damaging to Ukraine’s future than any Russian missile.
