Zelenskyy dismisses Ukraine’s Prosecutor General amid disability fraud scandal

The official decree, No. 745/2024, was posted on the presidential website.

"Dismiss Kostin Andrii Yevhenovych from the post of Prosecutor General," reads the decree.

On Tuesday, October 29, the parliament approved the resolution consenting to Kostin’s dismissal, with 255 members voting in favor.

Ahead of the parliamentary session, 14 members of the Verkhovna Rada’s Law Enforcement Committee backed Kostin’s resignation.

On October 28, President Zelenskyy submitted a draft resolution to parliament requesting approval for Kostin's removal as Prosecutor General.

Andriy Kostin had held the position since July 28, 2022.

Background

Kostin filed his resignation on October 22, following a scandal involving the head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Medical and Social Expert Commission, Tetyana Krupa. Krupa allegedly made millions issuing false disability certificates to help people avoid mobilization, with seized client lists implicating her.

Yuriy Butusov, editor-in-chief of CensorNet, reported that about fifty Khmelnytskyi region prosecutors had "disabled person of the II group" status granted by Krupa's commission, listing each by name.

As a result, Oleksiy Oliynyk, head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Prosecutor’s Office, also resigned, and the Office of the Prosecutor General opened an investigation.

An initial inquiry by the Anti-Corruption Action Center suggested that prosecutors not only in Khmelnytskyi but also in Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions were receiving disability benefits fraudulently.

President Zelenskyy responded by calling a National Security Council meeting on the issue of medical and social expert commissions.