Maksym Shtompel’s Turn Under Scrutiny

Ukraine is being rocked by yet another corruption scandal. Even for a country that has for years been ranked among the top five most corrupt in Europe, this is a significant development. On September 4-5, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) announced “Operation Carthage,” an investigation into corruption in the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO).

The result has been the resignation of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General himself, Ruslan Kravchenko, as well as First Deputy Mariia Vdovychenko. President Zelenskyy accepted Kravchenko’s resignation, which was confirmed by a 317-0 in the Verkhovna Rada. But the central figure in the probe was Serhii Kropyva, deputy head of the PGO’s International Legal Cooperation Department. He and others have been arrested in connection with embezzling millions of dollars through fraudulent call centers, and with abusing their office to provide legal protection for the centers.

On September 8, the Cherkasy Regional Prosecutor’s Office fired two prosecutors caught up in the investigation. The first is Viktoriia Dydych, who headed the Department for Procedural Supervision of Pretrial Investigations. She is Kropyva’s sister. Her husband, a lawyer, has also been implicated in the investigation and arrested. The second prosecutor – and the more important one in this case – is Maksym Shtompel, now former head of the Cherkasy Department of the District Prosecutor’s Office. Dydych and Shtompel were caught on tape discussing the latter’s April 2026 promotion and “resolving issues” for Kropyva and Dydych’s associates.