Ukrainian prosecutor general resigns amid draft-dodging scandal

Ukraine’s prosecutor general Andriy Kostin has publicly resigned following a corruption scandal in which dozens of prosecutors are alleged to have obtained fake disability certificates to enable them to receive social security benefits and avoid conscription.

A statement published by General Prosecutor’s office said the decision to resign came hours after Zelenskyy held a Security Council meeting to discuss “fake disability certificates of officials of state bodies.”

“I consider the position of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to be absolutely correct regarding the need not only to annul all unlawful decisions concerning the granting of disabilities, relevant pension payments, and other benefits, but also to implement clear legislative and organizational changes, as well as personal responsibility. This includes political responsibility,” Kostin wrote in his resignation statement.

The allegations emerged last week when a Ukrainian journalist published a story claiming that nearly 50 prosecutors in the western Khmelnytskyi region of Ukraine had been registered as disabled.

Kostin subsequently conducted an in-house investigation which established that 61 prosecutors of Khmelnytskyi region only had disability certificates.

President Zelenskyy has now asked his cabinet to draft a law to overhaul Ukraine’s disability assessment system with a view to dissolving the current medical commissions by the end of 2024.

“There are hundreds of such instances of clearly unjustified disabilities” among officials, President Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Tuesday. “All of this needs to be dealt with thoroughly and swiftly.”

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s domestic security service, the SBU, also announced that 64 members of medical commissions were identified as suspects in criminal investigations in 2024, with an additional nine having been tried and convicted.