Ukrainian authorities raided properties belonging to oligarch Igor Kolomoisky and former Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov on Wednesday as part of a corruption investigation, a senior official said.
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David Arakhamiya, head of the Ukrainian parliamentary faction of the “Sluha Narodu” (“Servant of the People”) party represented by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that the offices of the revenue service were also searched, and customs officials were dismissed.
“During the war, the country will change. If someone is not ready for change, then the country will come to the rescue and help change,” declared Arahamiya.
Ukraine has long suffered from endemic corruption, but Moscow’s full-scale incursion overshadowed the government’s efforts to stamp out corruption.
But last week, authorities fired about ten senior officials in the biggest political purge since the country’s first major corruption scandal linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Western allies have given Kyiv billions of euros in financial and military aid to fight Russian troops, but that aid is often conditional on anti-corruption reforms.
The search of Kolomoisky’s property was connected to an investigation into the embezzlement of 40 billion hryvnias (about one billion euros) from two energy companies.
The Security Service of Ukraine announced that it had also uncovered a fraud scheme by the head of the Kyiv Revenue Service.
