Budanov on Midas case: Anti-corruption agencies do excellent job exposing illegal scheme

Commenting on the case of corruption in the energy sector, Head of the Main Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov said that the anti-corruption agencies did an excellent job exposing an illegal scheme, and now the court should take up the case.

"I take it this way: the anti-corruption agencies did their job – they exposed and stopped the horror that was shown. The president's position is absolutely correct. He saw all this and made the right decisions: people were immediately suspended. And then he contributed to their being dismissed from their positions as soon as possible," Budanov said in an interview with Channel 24.

The case will be considered in court in the future. After the official results of the investigation, the guilty must be punished.

"We are a state governed by the rule of law. Therefore, the court must put an end to this issue and it will definitely put it. My position is that people who committed corrupt acts, especially during the war in a socially important area, must be punished. There can be no excuses here. They did it deliberately, so they must be punished deliberately," Budanov said.

He also said corruption at this level can negatively affect the attitude of partners towards Ukraine, in particular in the issue of financial assistance.

"Such a risk exists. We need to think about it and not give an additional reason from ourselves that will make our enemy's task easier. He has already predictably started such work through a system of bots that even more 'stir up' negativity in society. Targeted work is also being done against our partners, saying that we cannot do business with Ukraine," Budanov said.

He called on Ukrainians to keep their heads down and realize that judges will do everything possible to punish the guilty.

"Society is hurting, people have no electricity – and here corruption in the energy sector has been exposed. How can people react to this? This is a normal manifestation. But we ourselves must not overdo the situation so much that we block our own help," Budanov said.

As reported, on November 10, NABU and SAPO announced a large-scale operation to expose corruption in the energy sector, which was called "Midas." The activities of a high-level criminal organization have been documented, whose members built a large-scale corruption scheme to influence strategic state-sector enterprises, in particular JSC Energoatom. The company confirmed the conduct of investigative actions in the company on November 10.