Sept 8 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s prosecutor general said on Monday he had offered his resignation citing political reasons, in the latest sign of disunity in the senior ranks of the Ukrainian ruling elite.
“This is a political decision, and I have made it consciously. I do not want the position of Prosecutor General to be used as an instrument of political confrontation,” Ruslan Kravchenko said in a statement on Telegram late on Monday, without elaborating.
Kravchenko thanked President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, and asked them to accept his resignation.
Ukraine’s anti-graft agencies, the NABU and SAPO, said last week they had uncovered a criminal organisation dealing with fraudulent call centres which was allegedly arranged by an official within the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Kravchenko has denied he was involved in the alleged scheme. “My position regarding the accusations remains unchanged,” he said in his Telegram post.
Kravchenko’s resignation offer follows other changes among top officials in Ukraine as it continues to battle Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022.
In July, Zelenskiy endorsed the head of state energy company Naftogaz, Sergii Koretskyi, as Ukraine’s new prime minister, following the resignation of Yulia Svyrydenko.
Svyrydenko’s year in office coincided with a corruption scandal involving senior figures. Although she was not implicated, critics said she failed to take sufficient action to clean house.
Zelenskiy also in July replaced popular Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov just six months after he had been appointed. Fedorov was a strong advocate for military reform but clashed with senior generals over strategy and procurement.
(Reporting by Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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