Ukraine’s president fires a top aide after the National Anti-Corruption Bureau alleged a group of top officials laundered money to pay a former minister’s bail.
KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired Iryna Mudra as deputy head of his office Wednesday, hours after anti-corruption watchdogs searched her workplace as part of a sweeping probe into an alleged criminal organization.
“Iryna Romanivna Mudra is hereby dismissed from the post of Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a decree published Wednesday. The one-line order gave no reason for her removal.
The firing adds to a turbulent stretch for Zelenskyy. Former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called Tuesday for wartime elections and denounced corruption and a systemic governance crisis, weeks after his ouster triggered prolonged street protests.
Earlier Wednesday, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, or NABU, announced a new operation targeting an alleged criminal organization involving current and former lawmakers and senior officials in Zelenskyy’s office. The bureau said it was carrying out searches with the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, or SAP.
The investigation, dubbed Operation Forrest Gump, alleges the group laundered around 150 million Ukrainian hryvnia, equivalent to roughly $3 million, through state-owned Sense Bank to fund bail for former Energy Minister German Galushchenko, a key figure in last year’s $100 million Midas corruption scandal.
Writing on Facebook, Mudra said: “I will defend my name in a legal manner – calmly and consistently.”
NABU did not name Mudra directly in its video statement, referring only to a deputy head of the president’s administration, but searched her office.
Ukraine’s corruption watchdog released recordings in which a woman identified in the video only as a deputy head of the president’s office can be heard saying: “Fighting corruption is a wrong approach … Corruption has to be systemized and controlled.” NABU did not identify the woman by name.
This article has been updated with a comment from Iryna Mudra.