Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired deputy chief of staff Iryna Mudra on Wednesday, as anti-corruption investigators launched a major probe targeting an alleged criminal organisation involving senior officials linked to the president's office.
Apart from Mudra, the suspects include a current member of parliament, a former lawmaker and the chief executive and head of supervisory board of a state-owned bank, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). The description of the bank officials appears to refer to Sense Bank.
Investigators allege that the group helped launder around €3 million (150 million Ukrainian hryvnia) that had been posted as bail for a suspect in a corruption investigation.
That is operation Midas, a probe into alleged corruption at Energoatom, Ukraine's state nuclear power company, which has become the biggest corruption investigation of Zelenskyy's presidency.
The latest case is therefore not an isolated one. Rather it appears to have grown directly out of an investigation that has already implicated former senior government officials and people with longstanding personal and political ties to Zelenskyy.
