Ukraine's Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko submitted his resignation on September 7 after a deputy department head in his office was accused of shielding scam call centres.

"This was a deliberate political decision. I don't want the role of prosecutor general used as a tool in a political conflict. My position on the allegations has not changed," Kravchenko wrote on Telegram, Meduza reported. He had been prosecutor general since June 2025 and had told journalists earlier the same day that he had no plans to go.

Approximately $7,000 a month could have been passed to representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office from each call centre, sources in law enforcement told Ukrainska Pravda, which calculated that 100 centres under such protection would generate $700,000 a month. At the peak of activity in 2026 the network may have controlled up to 500 scam call centres, which would generate up to $3.5mn a month.

As IntelliNews reported earlier, a recent study estimated that Ukraine’s scam call centres have been generating about $1bn per month.

The case, run by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, is known as Operation Carthage. Investigators say Serhiy Kropyva, deputy head of the office's International Cooperation Department, created the group in mid-2025, recruiting serving prosecutors and associates outside the office, and that it took systematic bribes to let scam call centres operate against both Ukrainian citizens and foreigners. He is suspected of laundering assets worth more than UAH89mn ($2mn).

Kropyva was detained on September 4 and remanded until November 2 with bail set at UAH120mn ($2.7mn). Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, 24, accused of laundering funds and holding real estate registered in her own and her family's names, was given 60 days with bail of UAH20mn ($450,000). Kropyva's driver Serhii Kutsyi, codenamed Comrade in NABU recordings, was remanded for 60 days with bail of UAH3mn ($67,500) and ordered to wear an electronic tag and surrender his passports.

Kravchenko had denied involvement on September 6. "I have no involvement whatsoever in covering up illegal call centres, I have not issued any instructions to facilitate such activities, and I have not used the powers of the Prosecutor General for this purpose," he said, adding that all staff working on call centre cases would face polygraph testing and that "no position will protect anyone", the Kyiv Independent reported.

The detail that made his position untenable is in the recordings. NABU material refers to a "boss" who protected the group, with the patronymic Andriiovych, who previously led the State Tax Service. Ruslan Andriiovych Kravchenko headed the State Tax Service from December 2024 to June 2025.

Depoliticising the office is an EU membership condition, requiring Kyiv to make selection and dismissal procedures more objective, transparent and merit-based. A reform bill was voted down by the parliamentary law enforcement committee on August 19. The case sits alongside NABU investigations into the former deputy head of the presidential office Iryna Mudra, the former presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak and the Energoatom procurement case, a sequence that has now cost Ukraine a justice minister, a chief of staff and a prosecutor general inside a year.