Carthage must be destroyed: how Prosecutor General’s Office became haven for relatives of "queens" and protectors of call centres
On September 5, NABU and SAPO announced that they had uncovered a criminal organisation headed by Serhii Kropyva, a senior official in one of the Prosecutor General’s Office’s divisions. In the recordings, he is described as someone who provides protection for call centres, while the Prosecutor General’s Office itself looks like a haven for relatives of schemers and sybarites.
"Members of the criminal organisation established a mechanism for systematically receiving bribes in exchange for not interfering with the illegal activities of so-called call centres. These shadow operations committed fraud on a massive scale, victimising both Ukrainian citizens and foreigners," NABU added. The fee for this protection was $20,000.
So far, five people have been served with notices of suspicion, including the PGO official (referred to as "Chancellor" in the recordings), his driver and assistant, and his live-in partner, Yelyzaveta "Muse" Ivakhnenko. According to journalists at ZN.UA, the head of the agency himself, Ruslan Kravchenko, ended up in hospital following searches at the Prosecutor General’s Office. On Sunday, he posted a comment saying that he was not involved in the crime and would launch an internal inquiry.
Yet, in the context of a case in which a suspect repairs a fireplace for him and chooses a laptop for a live-in partner, it is hard to have confidence in the effectiveness of such an investigation.
As previously reported, NABU stressed that "Chancellor" was acting in the interests of a person who had granted him authority and a sense of absolute impunity. Kropyva was detained in Lviv when, according to NABU, he was preparing to flee, which means someone had once again obtained information about the investigative actions.
As the prosecutor stated on Sunday at the hearing on pre-trial restrictions for PGO employee Serhii Kropyva, a criminal organisation involving a number of officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office operated in 2025–2026, using their power and official authority to protect call centres and ensure that their illegal activities were concealed. In return, the officials received undue benefits, which they then invested in projects "in construction, solar energy, leisure and recreation, and information technology".
According to investigators, during that period the official managed to launder UAH 41,761,850,000, as well as assets worth more than UAH 48 million between August 2023 and May 2025.
In April 2026, NABU managed to record a conversation involving the driver of a Toyota Prado used as an official vehicle, who was using it for personal purposes while another employee was absent. He tells a young woman that "this car is now with a guy who’s a boss at the prosecutor’s office, but Seryoga drives him around", and that this man "provides protection for call centres all over Ukraine".
In February, NABU detectives recorded a conversation between Kropyva himself and his driver, Kutsyi, in which the PGO official reflects on his career prospects.
Kropyva: I reckon I need to become a deputy, Seryi.
Driver: A deputy?
Kropyva: Well, of course.
"What does the driver say in response? "You’re basically almost a deputy already." To which Kropyva replies: "No, well, it’s just that I don’t want to get shit thrown at me in the media." To which the driver says: "Yes, yes, they’d have you on the hook straight away," the prosecutor said in court, reading from the records of covert investigative activities.
Kropyva then admits: "No, I’m screwed. There’s so much they could (expletive) nail me for."
In another conversation, Kropyva describes his work as follows: "I’ve gone back into law enforcement, as I told you. I’m now working at the Prosecutor General’s Office, in the international department. I’m very close to the boss. So I coordinate most of the areas of work across the Office, so everything’s fine."
The prosecutor also cited several other exchanges in court that show how the criminal group operated.
In one of them, Kropyva calls Danylo Slipchuk, who also worked at the Prosecutor General’s Office as a chief specialist in its Information Technology Department (and had worked alongside Kropyva at the Odesa Regional Military Administration from 2023), and asks him to get hold of a particular phone number. That is because Danylo has "every phone number in the world".
Kropyva asks him to check what is at 29A Sicheslavska Embankment in Dnipro.
"In fact, this conversation concerned the need to check an address where a call centre was operating illegally to establish whether or not they were cooperating with that call centre, specifically ahead of searches conducted on 25 February 2026 by the Prosecutor General’s Office and a number of other prosecutor’s offices at various call centre locations in Dnipro," the SAPO prosecutor notes.
Two minutes later, the caller rings back.
Kropyva: Hello.
Slipchuk: Hello, that one’s not ours.
Kropyva: OK, thanks, Dania.
"The next conversation was recorded on 25 February 2026 between Kropyva and his trusted associate Boiko, during which Kropyva says that searches will be carried out at the premises of unfriendly call centres in Dnipro. During this conversation, Kropyva also urges Boiko to provide a list of other addresses in order to remove obstacles to the operation of the call centres under Boiko’s control," the prosecutor notes.
Bohdan Boiko, whom the prosecutor mentions, is the president of Kharkiv Football Club.
"Yeah, Bodichka, hello. Bro, no, everything’s fine. I was just talking to DSI (the National Police’s Department of Strategic Investigations — ed.), they tell me, or rather, to the police officers. They tell me DSI has no active search operations in that region. Everything there has been put on hold. Even what there was, everything there is. So far, I have no confirmation that anything from there, anything…" the prosecutor quoted the suspect as saying in court.
Judging by the conversations, they were getting rid of competitors not only in Ukraine but also in Kazakhstan.
"Those Kazakhs called, and they’re ready to take down that ‘bad person’. But they want us to send them a request for mutual legal assistance. If there’s some guy on our side who’ll file a complaint here, though we need to think about what kind, over advertising or whatever else, let’s get this going. Think about it, find a guy," the prosecutor said, quoting another conversation between Kropyva and Boiko.
Boiko is just 28. At 26, he became a principal investor and co-owner of Kharkiv Football Club alongside Volodymyr Nosov, the founder of the WhiteBIT cryptocurrency exchange. The court files contain excerpts from covert investigative records in which Boiko says he is in Lisbon on club business.
According to the prosecutor, Kropyva warned him about searches. He also advised him on how to behave during questioning.
Based on what was disclosed in court, in addition to protecting their own and getting rid of competitors, prosecutors also visited other call centres to "stir up trouble".
In particular, this was how the searches at call centres in Dnipro were described. As previously reported, a video of Ihor Komarov appeared on Telegram channels in February 2026, in which he said that a ransom of 10 million was being demanded for him and that he was involved in Dnipro’s call centres, as were prominent businessmen (the other abducted man was Yermak, the son of Oleksandr Petrovskyi) and law enforcement officers.
Komarov was later found dead. On 25 February, 27 searches were carried out at call centres. According to the PGO, more than 1,500 people worked there, with each employee making up to 100 calls a day.
Since July 2025, the PGO has carried out nearly 800 such searches as part of international cooperation. However, NABU’s investigative records indicate that this was largely window dressing.
"So we’ve decided to keep doing what we’re doing. In other words, we don’t bend over backwards. And we don’t puff out any f***ing sails. We make sure we get the numbers. But we just spread them out, do about 10 a week. Something like that. And the main thing is, we give all this bulls*** plenty of publicity," Kropyva tells one of his interlocutors in the NABU recordings, describing the PGO’s actions.
Kropyva: … I’ll be there shortly. Speak to *** (Aidyn Khudiiev - TI) so that we coordinate everything there. Yeah, he’s come up with some procedure for monitoring all of those. Well, everyone sends in their planned searches for the week on this front.
The prosecutor also reported that Kropyva had met with a female relative of a person wanted internationally by the United States.
"Why do you think he is on that list? He is on it because the United States is offering a million dollars for information about two Ukrainian hackers involved in fraud," the prosecutor said in court.
As stated in the NABU video, to extend his influence across different regions of Ukraine, Chancellor, also known as Kropyva, pushed for his relatives to be appointed to various regional prosecutor’s offices. For example, he boasts about one such appointment in Dnipro. His relatives then discuss an appointment in Cherkasy.
The suspect also appears to have followed orders to hire favoured candidates for his unit.
Chancellor: We’re hiring a girl. Well, she’s the fiancée of a guy from the prosecutor’s office. It’s nothing important; the boss just told me to hire her, so I didn’t interview her the way I would in a normal interview. You understand? If I’d interviewed her, she definitely wouldn’t have passed.
Because she lacks the language skills and has no experience as a prosecutor, she only wanted to work as one, but never did. So she’s fundamentally unsuitable (inaudible) said to hire her (inaudible) I interviewed her.
Kropyva also talks about a former subordinate of his who was given a job at the State Tax Service, now headed by Lesia Karnaukh, who worked with Ruslan Kravchenko when he headed the Kyiv Regional State Administration.
According to the prosecutor, the suspect maintained very good relations with Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko while doing all this. The prosecutor also suggested that the Prosecutor General knew what his subordinate was doing.
Kropyva: Hello. Yes, Andriiovych. Yes, boss. No, no, everything’s fine. No, nobody’s giving me a hard time. Who would? You’ve got my back. And everyone knows it.
At the hearing, the prosecutor reported, among other things, that Kropyva had arranged through his people for repairs to the fence at the house in Kozyn where the Prosecutor General lives, liaised with the foreman and other staff on various technical matters, and bought items for the Prosecutor General’s wife and live-in partner.
Kropyva: The Prosecutor General just sent me a number, what’s her name, damn it, Myroslava, so, with her. Can you drive over if needed? Of course, of course, I’ll be with her. Everything’s there. There on Wednesday at 12. And look, we’ll need to install a gas-fuelled generator. Yes. And connect the gas-fuelled generator. Anyway, 30 or 50 kilowatts. Just don’t take the official car. I’ll send Oleh over to you.
In another conversation, Kropyva reports to the Prosecutor General on the purchase of tickets to Spain.
Kropyva: Andriiovych, of course, of course, I bought everything, bought everything, we’ve done everything. If anything needs changing, we’ll change it… All set for a great time. But tell me, maybe we could go there, or just go somewhere nearby, you know, as usual. Then tomorrow we’ll book something nearby, but somewhere cheap, for this whole thing, so it’s on record.
According to the SAPO prosecutor, they simply looked for cheaper hotels near the expensive ones and booked rooms there in the names of PGO officials.
In yet another conversation, Kropyva reports to the Prosecutor General on a restaurant reservation made for him.
Kropyva: Yes, look, we booked that restaurant, well, the restaurant you wanted, we’ve sorted everything else out. It’s just that it isn’t actually a Michelin restaurant. It’s just that the chef who works there used to work at one.
The recordings also feature Kropyva and his live-in partner discussing birthday presents for the Prosecutor General and his wife. They decide to give the Prosecutor General the book Homo sapiens, and his wife a U.S. visa costing $5,000.
The visa gift will later cause a scandal because one of the people arranging it will speak rudely to the Prosecutor General’s wife. Kropyva will then make calls to sort it out.
Kropyva: Hello, Andriiovych, no, we discussed it with him directly, discussed everything, we’ll sort it out now. There’s a guy who’s in touch with the senators we arranged this whole thing through. He’ll just ask for a few details now to finish things off. He’ll send the full list. Things like whether you’ve been to the States before and which other countries you’ve visited. It’s for filling out the form.
After this conversation, the suspect calls the person organising the scheme.
Kropyva: Hello, call Zhenia. A girl called him. This girl is very important. Can he show her some respect and stop being so boorish and rude? She called, and there’s no need to say, "Why are you calling me? All you need to do is send over your passport." That annoys the people behind her. That’s the last damn thing he needs. He could just make his money and take it easy. Ask him to be considerate and speak to her properly. This is very important to me.
The Kropyva case was provisionally classified under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:
Article 255 — establishing or leading a criminal community or criminal organisation, as well as participating in one;
Article 209 — legalisation (laundering) of property obtained through criminal activity.
The money laundering deserves a separate article about the lives of the "queens" who wanted to become deputy minister of education.
But what has been described above is probably enough to raise questions about the future of the Prosecutor General’s Office. This morning, the author was sent anonymous posts from a closed group for prosecutors, expressing disgust at this state of affairs: "They f*** queens and steal millions, while we live from pay cheque to pay cheque."
Now, clearly, calls for a competitive selection process for prosecutors and the Prosecutor General will come not only from Vitalii Shabunin but from society as a whole. After all, Ukraine hardly needs a prosecution service like this.
The Prosecutor General himself said he had "no involvement whatsoever in shielding illegal call centres, had not given instructions to facilitate such activities and had not used the powers of the Prosecutor General for this purpose". He published the statement on his Telegram channel on 6 September.
"Decisions have already been made regarding the employee of the Prosecutor General’s Office who figures in the investigation. He has been suspended from his duties. I have instructed that a personnel decision on his dismissal be prepared in accordance with the procedure prescribed by law," Kravchenko wrote, adding that this would not be the only personnel decision.
The Prosecutor General promises to review the work of the divisions and also denies that the safe shown in the photo is located at the PGO.
Tetiana Nikolaienko for Censor.NET
