President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 10, 2025. (Danylo Antoniuk / Anadolu via Getty Images)
President Volodymyr Zelensky knew a major energy scandal involving his allies was about to break and moved to pin the blame elsewhere, according to the recently detained former head of Ukrenergo, who is accused of failing to protect Ukraine’s infrastructure from Russian attacks.
On Nov. 10, Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau (NABU) raided the homes of ex-Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko and Zelensky’s former business partner Timur Mindich in connection with a $100 million kickback scheme involving Energoatom, the state-owned nuclear operator. So far, NABU has charged eight people in connection with the case.
“The President’s Office felt that this investigation was coming,” Volodmyr Kudrytskyi, Ukrenergo’s ex-CEO, told the Kyiv Independent on Nov. 10 in an exclusive interview.
“They wanted to find a scapegoat quickly, hoping to prevent this shitstorm.”
Kudrytskyi spoke to the Kyiv Independent two weeks after being arrested on embezzlement charges dating to his time at Ukrenergo. Observers have also said the case appears politically motivated, aimed at finding a scapegoat for Ukraine’s worsening energy situation amid Russian attacks.
Kudrytskyi, long critical of Halushchenko, accuses the President’s Office of having fabricated the charges against him. His arrest fits into an ongoing blame game to deflect responsibility for Ukraine’s lack of energy defenses as Russia unleashes its largest attacks during the full-scale invasion.
Volodmyr Kudrytskyi, Ukrenergo’s ex-CEO, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 10, 2025. (Bogdana Ferguson/The Kyiv Independent)
“The President’s Office and Halushchenko wanted me out (of Ukrenergo) for many years.”
Much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is without protection against Russian drones, allowing Moscow to annihilate half of Ukraine’s generation capacity last year and 60% of its gas production this year.
The strikes have left millions of Ukrainians suffering blackouts, weighing down morale, while energy companies scramble for funding to replace damaged equipment. But instead of taking responsibility, Zelensky sought to protect corrupt officials loyal to him, like Halushchenko, Kudrytskyi said.
“Kudrytskyi’s arrest was a play by Halushchenko and Mindich to find someone to blame for their failures to build fortifications for energy infrastructure,” opposition lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak told the Kyiv Independent on Nov. 10.
As Kyiv seeks more cash to finance emergency support for its energy sector, Kudrytskyi’s case and the Energoatom corruption scandal — the largest during Zelensky’s term — could erode Western trust.
“The corruption scheme could negatively impact investment in the energy sector. Potential donors or investors may question why they would lend money or invest in equipment or gas purchases if they doubt their funds will be used as intended,” Andriy Boytsun, an independent corporate governance professional, told the Kyiv Independent.
“If this was possible at Energoatom, why would it not be possible at any other Ukrainian state-owned company?”
Hijack attempts
Kudrytskyi was controversially ousted from Ukrenergo in September 2024, claiming corrupt individuals tried to take over the firm. Outraged Western partners supported Kudrytskyi, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development saying his dismissal “cast a shadow on Ukraine’s reputation in terms of corporate governance.”
“From the first days of our work in the Supervisory Board of Ukrenergo, we felt political pressure and observed constant attempts to bypass the competition to appoint people whose professional qualities were questionable to the company’s management board,” Ukrenergo’s former supervisory board chairman Daniel Dobbeni and board member Peder Andreasen wrote in a statement shortly after Kudrytskyi’s dismissal last year.
Ukrenergo, a multi-billion-dollar company, has been at the center of multiple power struggles as a lucrative target for theft and inflated contracts. Kudrytskyi believes Zelensky’s allies want control of Ukrenergo and other state-owned energy firms to “extract piles of cash,” as they did with Energoatom, in which companies were allegedly required to pay 10–15% kickbacks on contracts, according to the NABU investigation.
In one instance, Kudrytskyi said he pushed back against Halushchenko’s obsession with appointing his own “corrupt people” to Ukrenergo’s management to steal funds for him. Among them was Serhiy Pushkar, named by NABU in the Energoatom corruption scheme.
(L-R) Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko, a film producer and co-owner of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Kvartal 95 production company, Timur Mindich, and then-Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov are involved in Ukraine’s ongoing corruption scandal. (Martin Bureau/AFP/Thierry Monasse/Getty Images, Collage by the Kyiv Independent)
“The President’s Office and Halushchenko wanted me out (of Ukrenergo) for many years. But they received huge criticism and failed to gain control over Ukrenergo,” he said.
The Kyiv Independent reached out to the President’s Office for comment, but didn’t hear back by the time of publishing.
Raid and arrest
A year after Kudrytskyi left Ukrenergo, Zelensky’s administration launched a double-pronged attack: accusing him of embezzling funds at Ukrenergo, and then failing to build enough defenses around energy infrastructure, he said.
On Oct. 21, officers from the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) unexpectedly stopped and searched Kudrytskyi’s car and then, later, his home. Despite raiding his house, the SBI said he was just a witness in a conspiracy between a contractor and Ukrenergo officials. But he had already left Ukrenergo months before the alleged scheme happened, he said.
At the time, he told the Kyiv Independent that he believed someone high up had orchestrated the raid to “send a message.” A week after the raid, Kudrytskyi was on vacation with his family in Lviv Oblast when the SBI detained him for allegedly embezzling $325,000 in 2018 and causing financial damage to a bank.
The SBI alleges that Kudrytskyi conspired with Visyn Rich, a company controlled by businessman Ihor Hrynkevych, to set up a fraudulent Hr 13.7 million ($325,000) contract backed by a bank guarantee. Investigators say the company took the advance from Ukrenergo with no intention of completing the work. When it failed to deliver, Ukrenergo recovered the guarantee and penalties totaling over Hr 17 million ($405,000), leaving the bank — not the company — to absorb the loss.
(L-R) Ihor Hrynkevych, his children Olga and Roman, and his wife Svitlana in an undated photo. (Yevhen Plinskiy/Facebook)
Kudrytskyi said he had no reason at the time to believe that Visyn Rich would fail to complete the work or that the company was connected to Hrynkevych, a businessman later implicated in a large-scale defense procurement corruption scheme. While he doubts the company ever repaid the bank, he added that the bank, as the guarantor, was responsible for covering the loss.
“There’s not a single document evidencing that I even knew or conspired with Hrynkevych or with anyone at that company,” Kudrytskyi said.
“It is a completely shallow case, probably fabricated very quickly,” he said.
The plan to defame him failed, he said, as he received a wave of public support after the arrest. Businesses from different sectors pooled together to raise his $325,000 bail in a matter of moments, he said.
Fortifications and botched plans
Zelensky’s next line of attack was to directly blame Kudrytskyi for the blackouts, telling reporters on Nov. 7 that as the former head of Ukrenergo, Kudrytskyi was “obliged” to ensure energy security but “did not.” His accusation came just days after Zelensky announced his “populist” winter support package proposal to win over public support.
Kudrytskyi said he oversaw 60 concrete shelters for Ukrenergo’s transformers, while other state agencies built none in 2023-2024. He stressed Ukrenergo is only responsible for its own assets, not thermal, hydro, nuclear, or gas facilities.
“Zelensky wanted to avert attention from Halushchenko and (now-former) Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk for these failures (in the energy sector),” Kudrytskyi said.
“He is protecting them out of personal loyalty. But you cannot hide the elephant in the room.”
NABU also found the Energy Ministry had deliberately left key infrastructure undefended. The agency has recordings of Halushchenko’s former adviser, Ihor Myronyuk, calling protective structures a “waste of money,” according to Ekonomichna Pravda.
Ukrenergo’s ex-CEO, Volodmyr Kudrytskyi, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 10, 2025. (Bogdana Ferguson/The Kyiv Independent)
“The Energy Ministry thought that building shelters was too difficult. Halushchenko tried to persuade the president that other facilities did not need them,” Kudrytskyi said.
In addition to fortifications, he says he urged Zelensky in 2023 to decentralize the grid by adding gas piston plants and battery storage. This would ease Ukraine’s reliance on its large Soviet plants.
Instead, Zelensky chose a plan by Halushchenko and Rostislav Shurma, the ex-deputy head of the President’s Office, to create a 400-billion-euro investment fund for renewable equipment like solar panels, he said. There was no evidence that Ukraine’s energy sector needed or could swallow that much investment, according to Kudrytskyi.
“Zero euros went to this fund, and we lost a year,” he said. “These were fantasies of very unprofessional people.”
After the Energoatom scheme was unearthed, Zelensky and the President’s Office backed NABU and called for the guilty parties to be punished, though without naming names.
On Nov. 12, Halushchenko was suspended, with Hrynchuk resigning shortly afterward. The next day, Zelensky sanctioned Mindich and fellow suspect businessman Oleksandr Tsukerman.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yuliia Svrydenko also announced an audit into all state-owned enterprises, including in the energy sector, “to check the status of work, especially in terms of procurement.”
But Kudrytskyi warns the President’s Office may retaliate by targeting NABU — like arresting detectives or smearing it as pro-Russian, and could also go after government critics.
“They could go after anyone who is not silent and loyal enough,” he said.
Explainer: How is Ukraine’s biggest corruption scheme linked to Russia?
