cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/53100418

https://archive.is/CbkUH

Ukrainian investigators say that a criminal organization led by a business partner of Mr. Zelensky siphoned off and then laundered $100 million from the country’s publicly owned nuclear power company and engaged in other fraud and financial crimes.

But the revelations touch a particular political vulnerability for Mr. Zelensky. This summer, he moved to curtail the independence of the anticorruption investigators as they pursued the case.

The revelations are a remarkable reversal for Mr. Zelensky. He had once cultivated an image as a leader who would open up Ukraine’s politics by sweeping away the wealthy insiders known as oligarchs. Now, nearly seven years since the last election, and with a new one nowhere in sight because of the war, many Ukrainians see him as operating within a small, closed circle, unbound by the rules.