Attacking the Watchdogs: Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Activists and Institutions Face A New Wave of Assaults

By Brian Dooley and Suchita Uppal

Local activists in Ukraine working to counter corruption report a fresh wave of attacks by their own authorities, with some openly accusing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office of deliberately undermining anti-corruption institutions.

The accusations follow the investigation by anti-corruption officials of some of Zelenskyy’s close political circle. Attacking the Watchdogs, Human Rights First’s new report released today, documents how activists and investigative journalists exposing corruption face surveillance, prosecutions, and intimidation.

In July 2025, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) carried out more than seventy searches at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), detaining two employees and seizing case files. Within twenty-four hours, parliament passed Law No. 12414, effectively transferring control of NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) to the Prosecutor General. The backlash was immediate. Major street protests erupted in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Kharkiv—along with warnings from the European Union that the move would risk Ukraine’s EU path. Lawmakers were forced to repeal the measure within days. But what followed was a broader escalation of attacks by the authorities against institutions created after the 2014 Revolution of Dignity to investigate high-level corruption.

Our new report is based on interviews conducted in Kyiv and Kharkiv this month.

Among those targeted is one of Ukraine’s most prominent anti-corruption voices, Vitaliy Shabunin, Founder and Board Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC). “The authorities started targeting me and AntAC because we’re the first ones to sound the alarm when the government attacks NABU and SAPO. We did it during Poroshenko’s presidency, and now during Zelenskyy’s,” Shabunin told Human Rights First, adding that his “prosecution is just part of the picture.”

Shabunin was subjected to a raid at his home in July 2025. Investigators seized family devices and accused him of evading military service. “This is not an attack on just anticorruption activists from NGOs, but a broader strategy to undermine the whole anticorruption infrastructure created after the revolution of dignity,” he said. He now faces trial for alleged evasion of military service and fraud, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Shabunin believes these accusations are politically-motivated. “The context for this is a push to get Zelenskyy re-elected whenever elections come,” he said. “Corruption before and during the war will be one of the main issues at the next elections, so it's a priority for him not to have all these corruption scandals brought up by anticorruption activists and journalists.”

Dmytro Bulakh, head of the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center (KhAC), has also faced recurring retaliation. In 2017, he was beaten near his home after publishing investigations into local corruption. In 2024, Bulakh’s home and car were searched by law enforcement under the pretext of verifying his military service.

Iryna Fedoriv, co-founder of the Kyiv-based NGO Holka, who has herself faced intimidation and death threats, described the closing of political space in wartime Ukraine. “Monitoring the work of MPs and carrying out advocacy campaigns has become difficult, especially now, when laws can be passed very quickly. The old tools of influencing the political system are not always effective: mass protests during wartime carry huge risks, and the president does not always respond to petitions, even when they gather 25,000 signatures.”

The pattern of harassment extends to independent media. Slidstvo.Info, an investigative outlet known for its work on the Panama and Pandora Papers, has faced lawsuits, surveillance, and cyberattacks, with its reporter Yevhen Shulhat directly targeted. “Independent journalism is attacked by security services, which must fight the enemy, not reporters,” said Slidstvo.Info editor-in-chief Anna Babinets.

Even after the dramatic U-turn in July on the controversial law, targeted searches and prosecution of current and former NABU and SAPO officials have continued. Helen Hetnamenko of the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center described the value of these agencies and their independent functioning: “There is no other law enforcement agency in Ukraine that is legally authorized to investigate high-level corruption. These are the only institutions whose creation demonstrated to top officials that, in event of violations, they would be held criminally accountable”.

The constant pressure, coupled with new laws restricting public access to property and company registers, has made transparency increasingly difficult. Journalists and watchdogs now describe the environment as one of caution and self-censorship.

Local activists urge Ukrainian authorities to end the use of law enforcement powers to intimidate activists, journalists, and officials engaged in anti-corruption work. They ask that Ukraine’s allies publicly support Ukraine’s democracy, condemn authoritarian tactics by Ukrainian authorities, and make visible engagement with at-risk human rights defenders as part of their diplomacy.

Ukraine has long faced a double threat: from Russia’s war on the country, and from internal pressures promoting corruption and undermining democracy. Ukraine’s future depends on winning both struggles.

About the Authors

Brian Dooley

Brian Dooley (LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky) is a Senior Advisor at Human Rights First and a Professor of Practice at Queens University Belfast. He is the recipient of the University of Oslo’s Human Rights Award (2025).

Prior to serving as Senior Advisor, Brian directed Human Rights First’s engagement with the U.S. government and other partners to end threats and obstacles to human rights defenders.

From 2020 to 2023, he served as Senior Advisor to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders.

Prior to joining Human Rights First, Brian spent twenty years working for U.S., Irish, and international NGOs. He led Amnesty International’s work on partnering with national NGOs in the global South. Brian has also worked as Head of Media for Amnesty International in London and in Dublin and as Director of Communications for Public Citizen in Washington, D.C.

He is the author of several books about civil rights and U.S. politics. He had early experience on Capitol Hill, serving as a legislative researcher for Senator Edward Kennedy in the mid-1980s when he contributed to what ultimately became the 1986 Anti-Apartheid Act.

In 1981 and 1982, Brian lived and worked as an English teacher and community organizer in a black township in South Africa, which was prohibited under apartheid’s racial segregation laws.

Brian earned a PhD in the transnational history of rights from the University of East Anglia, an MPhil in Government and Politics from The Open University in London, and a B.A. with honors in Political Science from the University of East Anglia.

Suchita Uppal

Suchita Uppal (LinkedIn, Twitter, Bluesky) is a Consultant with Human Rights First, as part of its Human Rights Defender Program. Previously, she has served as a Consultant and Legal Fellow in the organization’s Accountability team, where she supported efforts to hold human rights abusers and corrupt actors accountable through the imposition of targeted sanctions. Prior to her LL.M., she spent four years in India practicing civil rights and pro bono litigation.

Suchita earned her LL.M. in International Legal Studies, along with a Certificate in International Human Rights Law, from Georgetown University Law Center. She completed her LL.B. (J.D. equivalent) at Government Law College, Mumbai, India.