Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have said they are conducting a special operation, codenamed “Forrest Gump”, to expose a criminal organisation led by a current and a former member of parliament and involving senior officials from the Office of the President.
“NABU and SAPO are conducting a special operation to expose a criminal organisation operating under the leadership of a sitting and a former Ukrainian lawmaker, involving senior officials of the Ukrainian Presidential Office and other individuals,” NABU and SAPO said in a joint statement on their Telegram channels on August 19.
The other individuals are the CEO and supervisory board head at a state bank, identified in Ukrainian reporting as Sense Bank, which was allegedly used as a channel for transferring part of the funds for former justice and energy minister German Galushchenko’s bail, himself already in the spotlight for suspected corruption and money laundering.
Further details would be released later. NABU subsequently released a video teaser containing excerpts from intercepted conversations.
In one recording a voice states: “We’ve got ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ right? But only an idiot would register the theft of money, and the payment for their children’s education, in their own children’s names. That’s why it’s ‘Forrest Gump.'”
Another excerpt refers to “four bags” and includes the remark: “If we do this, you can go to the President’s Office yourselves…”
According to NABU, the group organised and facilitated the laundering of approximately 150 million hryvnia in cash (€2.9 million). The two agencies said the conduct had been qualified under part three of article 209 of the criminal code, which covers the laundering of proceeds of crime.
The funds were channelled through accounts of front companies into the legal economy in order to post bail for one of the defendants in the earlier “Midas” (Mindichgate) energy-sector $100 million (€86 million) corruption case.
Galushchenko was detained on February 17 and the High Anti-Corruption Court cut his bail from 200 million to 150 million hryvnia on June 12. The full sum reached the court’s account on June 29, the day he walked free.
Premises associated with former lawmaker Maksym Mykytas and the state-owned Sense Bank were reported to be among those targeted. Mykytas headed the state construction corporation Ukrbud from 2010 to 2016 and sat in parliament from 2016 to 2019.
Mykytas was charged in two embezzlement cases in 2019 and 2023 and in a bribery case in 2022, the Kyiv Independent reported.
Ukrainian media and sources familiar with the investigation further reported that searches were under way at premises linked to Iryna Mudra, a deputy head of the presidential office responsible for legal affairs and judicial reform.
Hours later President Volodymyr Zelensky signed decree 734/2026 removing her from the post, which she had held since March 2024. No reason was given in the text.
Sitting MP Vadym Stolar, who had been elected on the list of the now-defunct pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life party and whose construction interests have repeatedly drawn the attention of investigative reporters, also saw his premises searched.
Stolar has also partnered up with Artem Kolyubayev, a former business partner of former President’s Office Head Yermak, according to the Bihus.info investigative project.
Stolar confirmed that investigative actions were taking place at his home and said he was cooperating fully.
Ukraine’s former energy minister, Herman Galushchenko, was dramatically detained aboard a train as he attempted to flee the country. https://t.co/MoTHDL6Srq
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) February 20, 2026
Investigators said the organisers had taken effective control of Sense Bank at the start of June, allowing sums to be moved through companies they controlled while bypassing the lender’s financial monitoring. The bank, one of Ukraine’s largest, was nationalised in 2023 and is owned by the finance ministry.
Searches were reported at the offices of the bank’s supervisory board and at the home of its suspended chairman, Mykola Hladyshchenko, according to Ekonomichna Pravda. Management board chairman Oleh Stupak has also been named in Ukrainian reporting.
NABU said its detectives had recorded attempts to place people under the group’s control inside the bureau and other law-enforcement bodies. The recordings also capture discussion of the selection contest for the SAPO leadership and of what would happen to those involved should the incumbent, Oleksandr Klymenko, secure another term.
During the searches investigators also discovered a document containing a crisis communications plan related to the work of a Verkhovna Rada temporary investigative commission.
The operation was announced hours before parliament appointed a new defence minister. Deputies went on to confirm Yevhen Khmara, a former acting head of the Security Service, by 312 votes, and approved Andriy Sybiha as foreign minister.
Separately, the weekly ZN.UA reported that NABU is preparing a second notice of suspicion against former Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, who was replaced at the Office of the President by Kyrylo Budanov.
Unlike the earlier money-laundering charge linked to the Dynasty construction project, the new suspicion would concern illegal enrichment and would focus on expert examinations of items seized during a search of an apartment belonging to businessman Timur Mindich.
This development belongs to the broader cluster of investigations stemming from the Mindich/Midas case rather than forming the core of the Forrest Gump operation itself.
NABU and SAPO have not yet publicly named all individuals under investigation in the Forrest Gump case or provided a full account of the alleged offences.
Both bodies were created under the reform programme demanded by Western partners after 2014 and their independence remains a benchmark in Ukraine’s European Union accession talks.
Andriy Yermak, the once all-powerful former head of Ukraine’s presidential office and a close ally of President Volodymyr Zelensky, has been released from custody after bail of 140 million hryvnia (€2.7 million) was posted in a money-laundering investigation.…
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) May 18, 2026
