'Mindich-Gate' in Ukraine Is Also a Banking Scandal

When the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) released recordings from Operation Midas in November this year, most headlines focused on 'golden toilets', suspects' nicknames, and the political earthquake in Kyiv. According to investigators, a group of connected individuals organised a kickback scheme from state-owned Energoatom contracts, extracting 10-15 per cent 'tribute' from suppliers and laundering approximately $100 million through a Kyiv 'back office'.

The alleged mastermind is businessman Tymur Mindich — a long-time partner of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and co-founder of Kvartal 95, who left Ukraine hours before searches began. Fuel was added to the fire by the dismissal of long-serving Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, who featured in NABU recordings under the nickname 'Ali Baba'.

International media have already dubbed 'Mindich-gate' the most significant corruption scandal of the full-scale war — with the potential to undermine Western support if it isn't investigated rigorously and transparently.

But behind all this drama lies a quieter, more technocratic story: a $100 million money-laundering machine operated for over a year without triggering a single alarm in Ukraine's banking system. This isn't just about Energoatom. It's a story about financial monitoring, the National Bank of Ukraine, and trust in the entire anti-corruption architecture of a wartime state.

This is precisely what financial journalist Olena Lysenko and economist and former banker Borys Kushniruk discuss from different angles in their posts and trilogy of sharp columns. Together, they pose uncomfortable questions to NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyy and his deputy Dmytro Oliynyk — questions Ukraine's Western partners can no longer pretend not to hear.

Operation Midas and the dog that didn't bark

According to NABU and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, Operation Midas exposed a high-level criminal organisation that 'latched onto' Energoatom and systematically siphoned millions of dollars through kickbacks during wartime. Investigators speak of nearly a thousand hours of covert recordings, dozens of searches, and a scheme that laundered approximately $100 million. Moreover, $4 million was seized directly in cash.

The political consequences are already palpable. The Energy Minister and other senior officials were forced to submit resignations; President Zelenskyy revoked Mindich's citizenship and announced a large-scale audit of state enterprises. Western media warn that the scandal could undermine public trust domestically and provide ammunition to opponents of Ukrainian aid in the EU and US.

Yet during recent parliamentary hearings, another much quieter statement was made. Head of the State Financial Monitoring Service Filip Pronin informed MPs that not a single bank in Ukraine had submitted a suspicious transaction report to his service related to the individuals now featured in the Energoatom case. Financial monitoring only saw isolated 'threshold' transactions — but nothing matching the scale of what now forms the basis of the charges.

Meanwhile, NBU Deputy Governor Dmytro Oliynyk told MPs that the NBU supposedly doesn't know where the dollars featured in Operation Midas came from to Ukraine, including the cash seized by NABU, and recommended MPs contact the US Federal Reserve System — which some parliamentarians interpreted as veiled mockery.

In other words: $100 million passed through the banking system, and the instruments designed to detect them remained silent.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that Ukrainian journalists have previously mentioned Pronin himself in investigations regarding possible abuses whilst serving as head of Poltava Regional State Administration, particularly during fortification construction. He denies everything, but the picture is discouraging: the person explaining why the financial monitoring system 'didn't notice' Midas is himself under informational pressure due to suspicions of corruption risks.

'Don't touch our people': What Lysenko says

This is precisely the gap that Olena Lysenko's post targets — one of Ukraine's most prominent financial journalists.

To paraphrase her main point: if the State Financial Monitoring Service genuinely received no reports of suspicious activity regarding Mindich-gate figures, only two scenarios are possible. Either Ukrainian banks utterly failed their compliance and AML, or someone at a certain level ensured that specific clients would never be deemed suspicious, regardless of how much money passed through their accounts.

Lysenko describes what she claims is a widespread informal practice: telephone calls from the National Bank to commercial banks requesting they 'accommodate our people'. According to her, certain senior NBU officials can discreetly signal which politically connected clients should be 'untouchable' for rigorous financial monitoring: don't block accounts, don't 'snitch' to the Financial Monitoring Service.

Simultaneously, Lysenko emphasises, for ordinary Ukrainians, financial monitoring systems ruthlessly block cards for side earnings of a few hundred dollars or attempts to withdraw money from a small pension.

Her conclusion is harsh: financial monitoring in Ukraine works aggressively against 'small folk' but goes blind when it concerns the truly powerful.

If she's right, then the essence of 'Mindich-gate' isn't merely that corruption existed. It's that the institutions meant to detect it may have been selectively 'neutralised'.

The Dubai trail: The Deputy NBU Governor Under Scrutiny

This is where Borys Kushniruk enters the story. In a series of columns for UNIAN news agency, the economist and former banker shifts focus to Dmytro Oliynyk, NBU Deputy Governor and former top manager at state-owned Oschadbank.

In his first piece, Kushniruk reconstructs what he calls the Oliynyk family's 'Dubai trail'. Among other things, he draws attention to:

• Elite apartments in Dubai's Zenith Tower residential complex, which, according to a rental listing, are let by a person he identifies as Oliynyk's former wife;
• Residence permits in the UAE and a sharp increase in the same former wife's income, which, in his view, is difficult to reconcile with actual professional career and market salaries;
• A Lexus NX 350h purchased in Ukraine after the formal divorce, despite the ex-wife supposedly permanently residing abroad, and a rented flat in Vienna where she lives with their son.

Kushniruk doesn't claim to have 'cast-iron' proof of corruption, but he meticulously outlines what compliance experts would call classic 'red flags': a convenient divorce before expensive assets appear, a sharp leap in the 'success' of a now-formally-ex-spouse, opaque foreign structures, a lifestyle manifestly more expensive than official income.

The key point: the High Anti-Corruption Court has already obliged NABU to open proceedings regarding these circumstances and verify the origin of the Oliynyk family's assets.

Separately, Kushniruk recalls: fictitious divorces are one of Ukrainian officials' favourite tools for transferring undeclared assets to relatives. Investigative journalists have repeatedly described this pattern in other cases.

His most damning conclusion concerns the National Bank itself: 'If even a hint of a "slush fund" appears at the NBU's apex, it's a direct blow to trust in the regulator and the hryvnia in Western partners' eyes', he summarises.

Supervision as a weapon: gambling, lotteries, and political patrons

In his second column, Kushniruk widens the frame. He demonstrates how banking supervision and financial monitoring can be used selectively — as an instrument of political pressure.

He recalls that Oliynyk oversees the NBU's key division responsible for banking system stability and supervision of non-banking financial markets. This division includes departments that can literally 'cut off oxygen' to any player through compliance requirements.

In practice, Kushniruk writes, we see banks and payment services sharply tightening screws for licenced gambling operators, sometimes completely severing their payment channels. Meanwhile, state lottery operator MSL appears significantly more 'protected', despite long-standing questions about ownership structure and licencing terms.

In his interpretation, this isn't coincidence. Kushniruk connects MSL with influential Chair of the Verkhovna Rada's Finance Committee Danylo Hetmantsev, who publicly builds an image as a fighter against 'shadows' and the gambling business but, according to the author, consistently defends Oliynyk at critical moments.

The emerging picture is disturbing: regulatory pressure is applied harshly against certain market players, whilst others — connected to political patrons — receive the privilege of a 'softer regime'. Once again, the main lever is a mundane but powerful instrument: who to consider risky for financial monitoring and who not.

'For those who still want to "stop" Kushniruk'

In his third column — with the telling title 'The NBU's Dubai Trail: For Those Who Still Want to "Stop" Kushniruk' — the author describes not only his conclusions but the reaction to them.

According to him, three things are happening behind the scenes:

Professional resonance. Banking sector colleagues informally confirm: the questions he's raised regarding Oliynyk and the use of financial monitoring are widely discussed — and often supported.

Direct pressure and threats. Kushniruk claims he's begun receiving direct threats over his texts. In his view, this indicates only one thing: he's hit a nerve.

NBU silence. Despite the seriousness of the facts presented and the High Anti-Corruption Court's decision regarding an investigation, the NBU has announced neither an internal review concerning its deputy governor nor his temporary suspension during the investigation.

Under such circumstances, Kushniruk states he's systematised his materials into separate dossiers and is sending them to Ukraine's key international partners: G7 embassies, the EU Delegation, the IMF, World Bank, EBRD, EIB, as well as American and European anti-money laundering structures (FinCEN, OFAC, MONEYVAL, etc.). His message is simple: if you want a clean Ukrainian banking system, you cannot ignore questions about NBU leadership.

Questions for the Pyshnyy–Oliynyk tandem

At the centre of this story isn't just Oliynyk, but his superior, NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyy, close to recently dismissed Presidential Office Head Andriy Yermak. Pyshnyy brought Oliynyk from Oschadbank when he took over the NBU in autumn 2022, and subsequently carried out a reorganisation, concentrating a powerful financial stability and supervision bloc precisely under his deputy's control.

This matters in the Mindich-gate context for at least two reasons:

Firstly, NABU's investigation claims that tens of millions of dollars passed through a 'back office' in the energy sector over an extended period. In any modern AML system, such flows should have generated numerous triggers and suspicious transaction reports.

Secondly, the Financial Monitoring Service's explanation that banks 'noticed nothing' means either catastrophic failure at the banks' own compliance level, or the existence of informal signals 'don't touch these clients' from supervision.

In this context, Lysenko's claims about telephone calls from the NBU to banks requesting they 'don't touch our people', alongside Kushniruk's description of selective supervision application to the gambling business, cease to appear as separate stories. They begin to resemble elements of one systemic picture.

It must be emphasised: none of this constitutes direct proof of Pyshnyy's or Oliynyk's criminal participation in the Energoatom scheme. They deny any violations; no official suspicions have been announced against them. In wartime, the requirement to observe the presumption of innocence remains fundamental.

But in a country where $100 million could be 'laundered' in the nuclear sector without any formal signals from banks, it's entirely logical — and necessary — to ask: did the watchdogs genuinely just sleep, or did someone order them to stay silent?

Why the West cannot look away

For Ukraine's allies, the initial reaction to Mindich-gate was twofold. On one hand, the scandal demonstrates that NABU and the anti-corruption court function and can touch people from the political 'core'. On the other — critics in Europe are already using it as an argument against new financial assistance packages. Hungarian officials, in particular, were quick to use the Energoatom story in their own rhetoric.

This is precisely why the banking dimension of the scandal cannot be dismissed as a purely internal Ukrainian discussion.

Since 2014, the NBU's independence and professionalism have been one of the key pillars of Ukraine's programmes with the IMF and EU. Western institutions have invested enormous political capital in presenting the National Bank as a technocratic 'island of good practice'. If it now emerges that NBU leadership:

• Turned a blind eye to suspicious foreign assets;
• Allowed financial monitoring instruments to be used selectively — against certain market players but not others;
• Tolerated informal arrangements regarding 'untouchable' clients;

Then the reputational blow will be felt not only in Kyiv. It will also affect those who have publicly guaranteed the Ukrainian regulator's 'quality' for years.

Questions requiring answers

Against this backdrop, Lysenko's post and Kushniruk's columns effectively formulate a concrete agenda for Ukraine's international partners — considerably more specific than the usual 'strengthen the fight against corruption'.

At minimum, NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyy must hear publicly and in detail the following questions:

How did the banking system 'sleep through' Mindich-gate? What signals and suspicious transactions (if any) did banks generate through which flows connected to Energoatom's 'back office' passed? Where did the cash seized by NABU come from, and why does the packaging of some bundles bear the markings of state-owned Sense Bank?

Were any informal or formal communications sent from the NBU to banks regarding key case figures? What is being done now to review historical flows and identify additional risks exposed by Operation Midas?

What's the status of the Oliynyk case and the 'Dubai trail'? How is the NBU cooperating with NABU and foreign partners in the UAE and EU to verify the origin of funds used to purchase property and finance the deputy governor's family lifestyle? Has an internal review or ethics investigation been initiated within the NBU itself? If so — why is there no transparent public communication about it? If not — why not?

How will the possibility of informal AML interference be eliminated? Does the NBU maintain records and protocols of all leadership contacts with banks regarding individual clients? What guarantees exist that no official can effectively 'disable' financial monitoring for politically sensitive persons?

For the donor community — the IMF, EU, G7 countries, international financial institutions — equally important questions include:

Will future programme reviews with Ukraine assess not only NABU's independence but the integrity of the financial supervision bloc and connections between the NBU and Financial Monitoring Service?

Will support be directly tied to specific, verifiable steps to clean up this sector, including personnel decisions where necessary?

Conclusion

Ukraine is fighting for its physical survival on the battlefield. But it's equally struggling for a place in the European institutional space built on trust in regulators, the rule of law, and financial transparency.

Mindich-gate has already shown that even in wartime, corruption can burrow into strategic sectors — such as nuclear energy. The work of journalists like Olena Lysenko and Borys Kushniruk's investigations hint at something no less troubling: the state's financial circulatory system — banking supervision and monitoring — may be more vulnerable than Kyiv and Western capitals have been accustomed to acknowledging.

For Ukraine's partners, the choice is actually simple. This isn't a dilemma of 'either support Kyiv or ask uncomfortable questions of Pyshnyy and his team'. It's recognition of the obvious: posing these uncomfortable questions means supporting Ukraine, strengthening trust in the hryvnia, protecting the reputation of Western assistance, and helping build precisely the state for which Ukrainians are paying with their lives today.