Ukraine’s ousted defence minister has said President Volodymyr Zelensky has ‘questions to answer’ about corruption in his government.
Mykhailo Fedorov, who led a revolution in drone warfare and is seen as a rival to Zelensky, said the president had ‘questions to answer’ about corruption after authorities searched the home of one of his deputy chiefs of staff.
On Tuesday, the former minister who was fired by Zelensky last month after clashing with the head of Ukraine’s armed forces, posted a nine-minute video to YouTube calling for an election amid a ‘systemic crisis of governance’.
Fedorov said in the video: ‘We must not let Putin decide when Ukrainians can choose their government.’
In a BBC interview released today, Fedorov, 35, said a money laundering investigation which began last week raised concerns about the president’s awareness of potential corruption among his allies.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (Nabu) reportedly searched Iryna Mudra’s home after she was accused of being part of a group which allegedly laundered 150million hryvnias (£2.5million) through the state-owned Sense Bank.
Zelensky sacked Mudra on Wednesday but gave no reason for doing so.
The search was part of a new money laundering investigation into lawmakers and bankers which began on the day Fedorov released his video.
Nabu said it had discovered a scheme to misappropriate more than £2.2million to pay bail for a former energy minister accused of money laundering.
The former defence minister said the president should answer queries about what he knew of corruption in his inner circle.
‘Let him answer this question… I believe that he’s ready for such questions. It’s his responsibility to tell us all whether he was aware of all that or not… I don’t want to make any assumptions,’ Fedorov said.
Ukraine has been rocked by corruption allegations as the war with Russia rolled into a fifth year.
