Acting Prosecutor General Declines to Open Case Against Arakhamia

Acting Prosecutor General Anton Kovalskyi has not entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations any information about a possible crime by Davyd Arakhamia, head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, the Anti-Corruption Centre (ACC) says.

"The response to the ACC's application came on 23 October, signed by Arno Lillemäe, head of the department for ensuring criminal proceedings at the Prosecutor General's Office. It says that the circumstances set out by the ACC are supposedly 'already being investigated' in a criminal case, so the application was simply forwarded to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Yet the ACC has a reply from NABU confirming that only the prosecutor general has the authority to register information about a possible corruption crime by a member of parliament (Part 1, Article 482-2 of the Criminal Procedure Code)," the ACC said.

A repeat of February

The ACC says the prosecutor in effect refused to register criminal proceedings. In February 2026 an application about Arakhamia was likewise blocked with the statement that "the circumstances are being investigated by NABU detectives in a criminal case". Under the law, only the prosecutor general can enter information about a crime by a lawmaker into the register, and without that decision NABU detectives cannot open an investigation against Arakhamia.

Background

The ACC filed its application with Kovalskyi on 20 October, as we reported in Anti-Corruption Centre Files Criminal Complaint Against Arakhamia. On 27 December 2025 NABU and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office said an undercover operation had exposed an organised criminal group that included sitting members of parliament who systematically received bribes of $2,000–$20,000 for votes in the Verkhovna Rada; five MPs were served notices of suspicion. In the case on envelope payments to lawmakers, searches took place in late 2025 at the home of an aide to Arakhamia.