An escalating power struggle between Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs and its domestic intelligence agency has boiled over into an armed confrontation, after a senior security official allegedly threatened anti-graft detectives with firearms to block court-ordered searches.
The standoff erupted on November 4 as investigators from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and prosecutors from the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) attempted to execute warrants authorised by the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) targeting top echelons of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
According to a public statement issued by NABU, detectives were forcibly barred from entering a property by a senior SBU official who threatened to use firearms against them.
The confrontation escalated when armed SBU special forces personnel arrived on the scene.
“Such actions are unacceptable and directly obstruct the lawful procedural duties of NABU detectives,” the bureau declared, confirming an active criminal investigation into the armed interference.
In a statement on Telegram, the SBU confirmed that NABU and SAPO were searching its employees in connection with several criminal proceedings. It said it backed an objective and impartial investigation and was “facilitating the procedural actions”.
While anti-corruption authorities initially withheld names, Ukrainian media outlets, led by public broadcaster Suspilne, identified the official at the centre of the armed standoff as Major General Serhiy Duka, the first deputy head of the SBU’s Department for the Protection of National Statehood (DZND).
According to law-enforcement sources cited by Suspilne, Duka’s security detail trained firearms equipped with laser targeting sights on the anti-corruption detectives.
Parallel searches were reportedly launched against other key intelligence figures, including Anton Kravchuk, head of the SBU’s Main Directorate for Internal Security, and Oleksandr Kovalchuk, first deputy head of the DZND’s “D” Directorate.
The raids appear to represent an expansion of “Operation Carthage”, the anti-corruption probe that brought down former Prosecutor-General Ruslan Kravchenko. On November 4, NABU and SAPO said the investigation had exposed a criminal organisation suspected of systematically bribing serving senior officials in the SBU, the National Police and the Prosecutor-General’s Office.
In that case, NABU and SAPO uncovered a criminal organisation operating inside law-enforcement structures that, according to sources cited by the weekly ZN.UA, collected more than $24 million (€21.5 million) a month in kickbacks to “protect” illegal call centres. NABU has not confirmed that figure.
These fraudulent centres systematically targeted foreigners and Ukrainian citizens through high-pressure financial and investment scams.
The scandal reached the top of Ukraine’s prosecution service on September 4, when detectives raided the Prosecutor-General’s Office and detained Serhiy Kropyva, a senior official in its international legal co-operation department and a former cyber police officer.
The fallout forced Kravchenko, a key political appointee of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration, to submit his resignation on September 7. Parliament voted to dismiss him on September 15. Kravchenko, who denied wrongdoing, said he had been “kept in the dark”.
Before leaving office, he announced he had signed a notice of suspicion against NABU director Semen Kryvonos. NABU and SAPO rejected the move as an attack on their independence.
The November 4 events are the latest flashpoint in a long-simmering turf war between Western-backed anti-corruption agencies and Ukraine’s legacy security apparatus.
Duka previously played a prominent role in the SBU’s July 2025 raids targeting NABU staff, according to the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC), a Kyiv-based watchdog. Critics and civil society monitors denounced the drive as a political vendetta aimed at neutering independent scrutiny.
Ukrainian journalists report that detectives are currently probing whether DZND operatives systematically fabricated evidence and abused operational powers to initiate criminal proceedings against NABU staff.
The incident lands at a delicate juncture for Kyiv, with the European Commission and international donors conditioning billions of euros in macro-financial assistance and post-war reconstruction on strict judicial integrity and anti-corruption benchmarks.
These include the €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan for 2026-2027, which the Commission has tied to rule of law and anti-corruption conditions.
The standoff also came on the day the Commission was due to publish its annual enlargement report on Ukraine’s progress towards EU membership. A draft reported by Radio Svoboda in October cited “persistent attempts to exert systematic pressure” on NABU and SAPO and urged that the SBU’s powers be focused on national security.
The armed standoff comes against the backdrop of direct institutional clashes between the Office of the President of Ukraine and independent graft investigators.
In July 2025, Zelensky faced domestic street protests and sharp criticism from European partners after signing legislation that weakened the operational autonomy of NABU and SAPO. He reversed course on July 31, signing a new law that restored their independence.
The legislative move coincided with a campaign by the SBU, which**, together with the Prosecutor-General’s Office and the State Bureau of Investigation, carried out at least 70 searches targeting at least 15 NABU employees** on allegations of treason and misconduct.
Civil society watchdogs and legal experts characterised the intervention as an attempt by the executive to subordinate independent graft probes to the State intelligence apparatus.
The armed confrontation reflects the unresolved tension left by those moves.
Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies have searched the premises of the country’s central bank and the home of one of its employees, in the latest investigation to reach a senior state institution. https://t.co/acTbd3hPlo
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 22, 2026
