Protests force Ukraine to restore anti-corruption safeguards

Tens of thousands of demonstrators, mostly young adults, gathered in Kyiv at the end of July to vent their rage at a government effort to diminish the independence of the country’s two main anti-corruption agencies.

Gathering within earshot of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, they shouted slogans and waved handmade signs in Ukrainian and English.

“Shame!” one sign read. “Corruption is applauding,” said another, heavy with sarcasm. A few signs borrowed phrases from U.S. history: “I have a dream! Corruption-free Ukraine!”

Some observers have already dubbed the period Ukraine’s “Cardboard Revolution,” after the signs’ most common material. The protests were the first since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. And their vehemence caught officials by surprise.

On July 31, Zelenskyy’s government backed down, reinstating the agencies’ independence. The dramatic legislative about-face, and Ukraine’s highly visible public resistance, offers a sense of what the struggle against corruption means to ordinary Ukrainians, in light of the country’s past and wartime present.

The protests started after Zelenskyy introduced a bill on July 22 that established a new chain of command for the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and for the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). The bill put both agencies under the direction of the Office of the Prosecutor General (OPG), removing their power to work independently. The Ukrainian president appoints OPG’s leaders.

Zelenskyy, the OPG, and many legislators from Zelenskyy’s political party, called Servant of the People, argued the bill would help root out Russian influence and agents, such as spies, from Ukraine’s legal bodies. Meddling from Russia is an enduring concern in Ukraine. But opponents said the new law consolidated power in the Ukrainian presidency, another yearslong complaint in the country.

After just two days of protests in Kyiv and other cities nationwide, Zelenskyy presented a second bill to reinstate the agencies’ independence.

Even Ukrainians who didn’t take to the streets supported the cause. Some 69% of Ukrainians backed the protests, according to a survey conducted and published the last week of July by Gradus, a Ukrainian polling company. Support showed highest among 18- to 24-year-olds at 82%.

The bill restoring the anti-corruption agencies’ independence passed with near-unanimous approval, earning 331 yes votes from the 340 total legislators present at the time. The bill received no votes against it. Zelensky signed the bill into law immediately.

“I want to thank all members of parliament for passing my bill,” Zelenskyy said in an English-language post on the social media platform X. “It ensures the absence of any external influence or interference … for all law enforcement personnel who have access to state secrets or have relatives in Russia.

“It is very important that the state listens to public opinion,” Zelensky continued, in an apparent reference to the demonstrations. “Ukraine is a democracy—without a doubt.”

The reinstated agencies wasted little time getting back to work. On Aug. 4, NABU and SAPO charged six people, including military officers and a member of parliament, with corruption in a procurement scheme for drones and related front-line equipment.

Thousands of people protest against a law targeting anti-corruption institutions near the president's office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 23, 2025. AP Photo/Dan Bashakov

Corruption—a common feature of many countries from the former Soviet Union—has long been a problem in Ukraine. According to Transparency International, a non-governmental organization that publishes a widely referenced global corruption index, Ukraine ranks 105 out of 180 countries measured. The country’s civil society groups expressed strong concern that making NABU and SAPO beholden to the OPG would undermine years of progress.

The bills and related protests followed weeks of feverish legal activity, including arrests and court proceedings across Ukraine—pitting some government agencies against each other. Critics have called these politically motivated actions against perceived enemies of the Zelenskyy government.

Ukraine’s anti-graft bodies are currently investigating one of the country’s deputy prime ministers, who is alleged to have received a kickback of nearly $350,000 in a land development deal. On July 21, law enforcement agencies conducted at least 70 raids on NABU offices and employees. Numerous searches took place without court warrants, according to a NABU statement. Some raids happened on the basis of charges entirely separate from Russian influence, NABU said, including domestic traffic incidents that took place years in the past.

Other, related controversies centered on figures outside Ukraine’s government, including prominent anti-graft activist and military serviceman Vitaliy Shabunin. Shabunin heads the Anti-Corruption Action Center, or AntAC, one of Ukraine’s major good-governance advocacy groups. On July 11, Shabunin was charged with evading military service as well as fraud. His lawyer calls the allegations unfounded.

Shabunin has faced intimidation and legal pressure since Zelenskyy won Ukraine’s presidency in 2019 after campaigning on a reformist, corruption-fighting platform. Zelenskyy promised during his campaign to “ensure real independence of anti-corruption bodies.

Observers of the July demonstrations, in and outside Ukraine, have applauded the restoration of NABU’s and SAPO’s independence.

“They fixed what they messed up,” said Andrii Borovyk, the executive director of Transparency International’s branch in Ukraine.

Speaking to me by video call the day the second bill became law, Borovyk saw the whole controversy as a step backward for Ukraine and for public faith in the country’s institutions.

“On one hand, the trust cracked,” he said. But on the other hand, he said, the episode provides a compelling case for how popular demand can assure strong protections for holding the government to account.

“Everyone [in the government] heard what was said by the people,” Borovyk told me. He described the July events, and their results, as “a very good vaccination for our politicians.”

Borovyk also pointed to the protesters’ youth as a good sign for Ukraine’s future. “There were lots of youngsters,” he said. “They were the majority of this protest … They have [their] voice. They understand what is going on.”

Borovyk dismissed the notion, which he described as common among older Ukrainians, that young people who have left the country—and especially those who remain—are disengaged from politics amid the daily strain of war.

Others noted the connection between anti-corruption work and Russian aggression. In late 2013 and early 2014, mass protests led to a popular revolution and ousted a pro-Russian, and notoriously corrupt, Ukrainian government.

Exploiting a moment of crisis, Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and the southern peninsula of Crimea in February 2014. It has continued to occupy those regions, even as it launched its current effort to seize more Ukrainian territory in 2022.

Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher on Ukraine at Human Rights Watch (HRW), a U.S.-based advocacy group, said Ukrainian soldiers also played a role in last month’s popular uproar. “Those who couldn’t join the protests made their feelings very, very clear, whether on social media or in other ways: ‘This is not what I’m fighting for,’” she said.

Many military families attended the protests and carried signs with similar messages, Gorbunova told me by phone, the day after the bill’s passage.

But Gorbunova and Borovyk stressed that international partners also played a crucial role in pushing Ukraine’s anti-corruption measures forward—and in keeping them from sliding back. Many foreign aid packages, from the United States as well as the European Union (EU), include caveats demanding consistent progress in cleaning up Ukraine’s standards and habits.

During the protests, the EU trimmed Ukraine funding almost instantly, even while the corrective bill awaited a vote. On July 28, the bloc announced a reduction of 1.45 billion euros, or about $1.65 billion, from its Ukraine Facility fund, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

EU officials spoke in blunt terms about Ukraine’s need to maintain anti-corruption safeguards—or else lose support the country desperately needs during wartime. Beyond the war’s immediate pressures, any democratic backsliding may also threaten Ukraine’s stated goal of one day joining the EU as a member country. The protests of 2013-2014 erupted after the government reversed course on an agreement to start integrating with the EU.

Marta Kos, the commissioner on questions of EU “enlargement,” or acceptance of new countries, wrote on X that she felt “seriously concerned” about the first bill, as it posed a “serious step back.”

“Independent bodies like NABU and SAPO, are essential for Ukraine’s EU path,” Kos said.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, shared similar views. 

“Ukraine has already achieved a lot on its European path,” she said. “It must build on these solid foundations and preserve independent anti-corruption bodies.”