Why are Ukrainians mad at Zelenskyy?

POLITICO answers all your questions on the president’s anti-corruption legislation that has spooked Ukrainians and upset Kyiv’s staunchest allies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday approved a law that placed previously independent anti-corruption agencies under executive control.

The reforms, the latest move by the presidential office to consolidate power within a circle of loyalists, have critics fearing Zelenskyy and his team could abuse their special wartime authority.

Hundreds protested in central Kyiv and other cities around Ukraine on Tuesday for the first time since Russian leader Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, upset by the move to ram through the legislationPOLITICO breaks down what the fight is about:

What’s in the anti-corruption legislation?The new law gives the office of the prosecutor general, who is appointed by the president, direct authority over the previously independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP).The NABU is tasked with investigating government corruption. The SAP is responsible for overseeing criminal investigations launched by the NABU.The NABU, in a statement on Telegram prior to the bill being signed into law, outlined the sweeping new powers handed to the prosecutor general. They include the ability to access information related to all NABU cases; the right to give binding directives to NABU investigators and to transfer their cases if those directions aren’t followed; and the right to close investigations.“If this bill is passed, the head of the SAP will become a nominal figure, and the NABU will lose its independence and become a subdivision of the Prosecutor General’s Office,” the NABU said, warning the legislation “could finally destroy the independence of the anti-corruption system in Ukraine.”How does that undermine the anti-corruption bodies’ independence?Placing oversight of watchdogs who probe allegations of government corruption in the hands of a politically appointed Zelenskyy loyalist — Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko — could erode the independence and veracity of those investigations, critics of the law argue  Red more........