Ukraine’s army chief visits besieged city as Zelensky confronts graft scandal

• A Kyiv court has begun hearing evidence from anti-corruption watchdogs
• Tymur Mindich, a co-owner of Zelensky’s Kvartal 95 media production company, is the conspiracy’s suspected mastermind

KYIV: Ukraine’s top military commander said Thursday he visited troops holding the front line in a key eastern city besieged by Russian forces, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky grappled with the fallout from a corruption scandal that has engulfed his administration.

After Zelensky’s justice and energy ministers quit Wednesday amid the investigation into alleged energy sector graft, the government fired the vice president of Energoatom, the state-owned nuclear power company believed by investigators to be at the center of the kickback scheme.

The heads of Energoatom’s finance, legal and procurement departments and a consultant to Energoatom’s president were also dismissed in the clear-out, Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said late Wednesday. A Kyiv court has begun hearing evidence from anti-corruption watchdogs whose 15-month investigation, including 1,000 hours of wiretaps, has brought the detention of five people and implicated another seven in the scheme that allegedly earned about $100 million.

Tymur Mindich, a co-owner of Zelensky’s Kvartal 95 media production company, is the conspiracy’s suspected mastermind. His whereabouts are unknown. The investigation has prompted questions about what the country’s highest officials knew of the scheme. It has also awakened memories of Zelensky’s attempt last summer to curtail Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs. He backtracked after widespread street protests in Ukraine and pressure from the European Union, which has pushed the country to address entrenched corruption.