Lawfare Daily: All Things Ukrainian Energy with Anastasiia Lapatina

[Intro]

Anastasiia Lapatina: It's already been called the largest scandal in, you know, recent Ukrainian history, if not all of Ukrainian history. And it's happening in the energy sector.

And if you are the minister of energy and this is happening right under your nose, then you are def––like, regardless of whether she was charged or not, she still has political responsibility over the fact that it happened on her watch.

Benjamin Wittes: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare. With Lawfare Kyiv Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Is Zelensky directly implicated? Is he part of all of these corruption schemes, in which case he's of course guilty? Or is he just so incompetent at his job and so completely oblivious?

[Main episode]

Benjamin Wittes: Today we're talking energy: attacks on energy infrastructure in Kyiv, attacks on Russian refining capabilities all over the Russian Federation, and a massive energy scandal that has broken out in Ukrainian domestic politics.

So Nastya, we were supposed to have a video recording session today, and we are not recording video. We're recording audio only, and we're––and you do not have any lights on. Why is this? What's going on?

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, so there is a power outage happening in Kyiv right now at my address. It was supposed to be over by the time we were scheduled recording, but it got unexpectedly extended by another 90 minutes. Which was probably the result of Russia's attack last night.

The attack didn't target Kyiv, but as pretty much every single Russian attack recently, it did target Ukrainian energy infrastructure in other areas. And since of course, the energy infrastructure in Ukraine is highly centralized and everything is very much connected, I bet that that's why the scheduled power outages in Kyiv are prolonged longer than expected.

So, yeah. I'm not in total darkness. I'm very lucky to have a large portable battery that's big and expensive, but––is very useful because it can power a lot of stuff in, in, in your apartment,

Benjamin Wittes: And that's why we're able to record at all.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yes. That's why we're able to record at all, because yeah, it's not like my computer is dying and I'm totally stranded.

No. I have some source, and then I'm also stealing the wi-fi from a hotel nearby whose network I can catch. But it's still a little bit of a precarious situation, less than optimal, but we're dealing with it.

Benjamin Wittes: What is the temperature outside?

Anastasiia Lapatina: It's actually quite cold. I'm glad you asked that. It's two degrees Celsius.

Which is almost freezing. Right, but what is that in Fahrenheit for Americans?

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah. It's about 35 degrees. So

Anastasiia Lapatina: It's pretty cold.

Benjamin Wittes: It's cold to not have heat.

What is the relationship for most Ukrainians between electricity and power availability and heat in their homes?

Anastasiia Lapatina: So it's quite complicated.

But so basically Ukraine has a centralized heating system where more than half of all Ukrainian households rely on the centralized heating, where local authorities, the government decides when to turn it on or off.

So you have these batteries or heaters in your households, and at some point randomly they start getting heat in them and hot water. And that's when your apartment starts to warm up.

We already got heating, like the centralized heating is on in my household and in Kyiv generally and around Ukraine. But it's really not enough. And I guess it depends on what your apartment and what your household kind of plan is.

But for example, in my apartment, there is one room where there is only one heater. It's actually my daughter's room, which is really not great. And like the heating just doesn't really heat it enough, so it's still pretty cold.

And I still have to use like an electricity-powered, oil-filled radiator, so I need electricity for that. And so there are a bunch of other households that have sort of different arrangements where they may use something electricity powered like an ac, but the one that can also blow hot air.

I've recently realized that this is not like a usual thing in the U.S. In Ukraine, pretty much every AC that we have can blow both hot and cold air.

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah. It's true here too that, you know, okay, heat pump, heat pumps and whatnot can regulate in both directions.

Anastasiia Lapatina: But you need electricity for that. Yeah.

Benjamin Wittes: Right.

The point is, if the power goes out, it does not necessarily affect the centralized, post-Soviet––Soviet-era central heating that powers a gazillion buildings, but it very much affects individual apartments that are supplementing that or that don't have access to that at all, you know, and rely on electricity to one degree or another for he.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Wittes: So we are talking about your power situation and how it affects our recording, because by––I would say coincidence, except it's not a coincidence––you have written two major pieces for Lawfare recently about the electricity and energy sector in Ukraine.

One about this very issue, which is Russian strikes on the energy sector as we are approaching another winter, and the other about a political scandal affecting the––a domestic political scandal that is rocking the Zelensky administration that emanates from the energy sector.

So it seems fitting that we should be recording this while you are relying on battery backup and stolen hotel wi-fi.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, we really didn't plan it. No, this was, this just happened.

Benjamin Wittes: Except in the sense that you have good news judgment and are writing about topical issues.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Sure.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, so let's talk about the military side of this first.

It is not new that the Russians target civilian Ukrainian energy sector stuff. It seems to happen pretty systematically at every time––at this time of year, every year, because we are heading into winter, and it hurts most if it affects people's access to not merely electricity, but heat.

But this year seems unusually intense. What do we know about what's going on and what do we know about the Russian strategy?

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, so as you've mentioned, it's not a new phenomenon at all, the fact that the Russians are trying to wipe out Ukrainian energy infrastructure. In fact, they've tried to do that every single cold season, you know, every fall they begin this campaign trying to, as every headline it feels like, have said, “plunge” Ukraine into cold and darkness before winter.

It's interesting, the verb is always plunge.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Oh, it's always plunge. It's, yeah, it's a little frustrating. We really need to find new synonyms for this.

But the essence of what they're trying to do is accurate. Yes. That's what they're trying to do. And the goal has always been to not only hurt Ukraine's military effort––which of course, if you have the power generation issues that definitely affect your logistics, your troops––but I think a bigger goal, a more important goal is to hurt Ukraine's morale, and to make the situation in big cities like Kyiv, but also in smaller cities in general, the situation for the civilian population that's not near the front line so difficult and so almost unlivable that the will to fight just deteriorates, and people are willing to sort of end the war as soon as possible, no matter on what terms that would be, right.

So basically the Russians are hoping that the Ukrainian society becomes more open to a deal that may be highly unfavorable to Ukraine because of the strikes and because of the energy situation.

It hasn't worked in the past. And in fact, you know, I'd say it only hardened Ukraine's resolve, right? It's sort of a very typical Ukrainian phenomenon. Because every time there would be some terrible attack with mass civilian losses that clearly is trying to just spread this terror among the civilian population and sort of terrorize people into submission, it never works. Like it has never worked before and it doesn't work now.

But all that is to say is that this winter is different, and it feels different. And there are several factors for why. One is that the Russians have greater quantities of better weapons. So they mainly use drones to attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure, but also some cruise and ballistic missiles.

And the drones, in particular, have gotten a lot better. They are faster, they're harder to intercept. Their payload is greater, so they're just deadlier upon impact. And all of that makes air defense a lot more difficult when it comes to the drones.

Another reason is that the Russians are using new tactics and their overall strategy seems different from previous years. So, in the past, they would launch these mass attacks against many different areas in Ukraine, or even one area, but it would be a little bit random. Like they would try to attack Kyiv a lot because it's the capital and they would try to attack big cities.

And it was quite bad, as in there were power outages every single cold season and it was very imperfect for the civilian population, but everyone sort of got used to it, got portable batteries, got power banks, blankets, and sort of figured out how to live with it.

And it was never quite as dramatic as everyone sort of feared it would be. And there was never a blackout, which––everyone throws the word blackout around a lot, but it actually means something very specific. It’s a cascade failure of the electricity grid of the system, which just means that the, for example, if the Russians attack many energy sites at once and suddenly all of them stop working, the overall frequency drops by too much too quickly.

And so the operators of the grid, like people and engineers taking care of it, just lose access to it because a bunch of energy sites to prevent sort of, you know, the melting of the wires and explosions and stuff, they just shut down for an emergency safety reason sort of thing. So a bunch of energy sites during a blackout, which happened only once in Ukraine, would just shut down as a, in a domino-like effect across the country.

And so millions of people would be plunged into darkness all at once. So that's a very specific sort of technical term. And that happened only once in Ukraine. It happened in the fall of 2022, and that was pretty bad. But even that lasted for only like 12 hours, because all of these things are very much repairable, if that's a word.

Like it's not actually that hard to repair energy infrastructure, if you have enough redundancies and enough equipment and you stock up on stuff. But back to the new strategy what they're doing now in Ukraine is they're very methodically trying to attack the most vulnerable areas in Ukraine, which would be areas that are close to the frontline, and also areas close to the Russian border.

So the ones where it's the easiest for Russian weapons to reach Ukrainian territory. So they would be attacking Donbas, Donetsk Oblast. They are attacking Dnipro, they're attacking Kharkhiv, Zaporizhzhia.

So they're basically attacking much of the central but more Eastern Ukraine. And if you look at a map, it appears like their strategy is to sort of split Ukraine in, in half.

And what they're trying to achieve is they would increase the electricity demand in the East because they would wipe out all the infrastructure and the western Ukraine, all of the, plants in western Ukraine would essentially not be able to deal with that demand. So that, and that, that's a new strategy and it's unclear if it's gonna work, but it, they are being more methodical.

And so, experts say that the situation is a lot more precarious this year, this time around.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, so there's another big difference this year, which is that Ukraine is hitting back at Russian energy infrastructure. Although it's a different energy infrastructure, it's not civilian energy power, it's gas refineries and Russia's ability to produce and sell refined oil products.

What is going on on the offensive Ukrainian side?

Anastasiia Lapatina: You are right that Ukraine has been carrying out its own deep strike campaign against Russian energy infrastructure. And Ukraine isn't doing it necessarily in response to Russian attacks, because the Ukrainian campaign has been going on for many months now actually, and it surely ramped up in August.

And Ukraine has been hitting many many refineries, depots, pumping stations, export terminals, all sorts of sites with the long-range drones that it produces domestically as well as the missiles. And there are some statistics that say that Ukraine launched more than 60 attacks into Russia between August and October, so in the span of around three months.

It's a pretty tricky campaign to analyze in terms of how much damage it, it can actually do. Again, because Russia has a huge repair capacity. Its industry, despite the sanctions and despite the Ukrainian attacks, is pretty strong. So, essentially the long-term success of the Ukrainian campaign depends on for how long Ukraine can keep it up.

So on the continuity of the attacks and the scale of the attacks, because essentially these Ukrainian attacks, they don't destroy a refinery completely, or they don't destroy an energy site entirely. What they do is they damage it, and then Russia has to pump resources and spend money and time on repairing it.

And what Ukrainians have been doing is they would, they're hitting the same sites over and over, essentially plunging the people who work there in this constant cycle of repair, which is costly. And of course, one refinery in that situation isn't that costly. But if it happens all around the place, right, and if it keeps happening, then the costs accumulate.

And with the sanctions that are imposed in Russia the repairs can actually get pretty costly in terms of the delivery of certain stuff that's needed for those repairs. So what's also interesting about this campaign is that the U.S. has actually been playing a key role in it.

Supposedly U.S. has been sharing crucial intelligence for targeting, including for the evasion of Russian air defenses. Which is a big move for the Trump administration, because with the previous administration, Biden, the Biden administration officials, they were sort of vehemently opposed to the idea that the U.S. would be in any way involved in Ukrainian strikes, deep strikes into Russian territory.

They were against Ukraine using American weapons to do that. They were against also, they were also against the very idea of Ukraine hitting Russian energy, actually. They discouraged the campaign in general. Whereas now we see this very real shift between the administrations, which of course is a good thing for Ukraine long term.

And as far as we can tell the effect that it's having, there have already been reported shortages of fuel in Russia and many areas in Russia, and some areas even introduced sort of rationing at the gas stations.

Ukraine, of course, is selling this as sort of the Ukrainian sanctions, right?

It's sort of pitting this campaign against the timid West, who is so slow with imposing more sanctions against Russia. And so Ukraine is taking matters in its own hands kind of thing. And again, as I've said, it's hard to know what effect this has, what immediate effect this campaign has.

Benjamin Wittes: Well, one, one immediate effect is that it's raising the price and restricting access to gasoline in Moscow.

And, you know, the, the––

Anastasiia Lapatina: For the civilian population, yeah. Sure.

Benjamin Wittes: For the civilian population. One, one problem that Ukraine has had over the course of the war is that Moscow elites are relatively shielded from the consequences of it. The average Russian soldier is, you know, not a Muscovite.

And you know, I do think there are a limited number of ways for the Ukrainians to bring the war home to and have them affect people who Putin actually has to keep happy. And this actually does seem to be one of them.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah. I mean, another effect is that Russia had to introduce a ban on gasoline exports and also partial ban on diesel exports, at least until the end of this year.

Which again, isn't the kind of thing that's going to cripple––again, another word just like plunge, cripple the Russian economy. Everyone has been waiting for that to happen for, you know, since 2022. And it really hasn't.

And also the Ukrainian government has said that the strikes have decreased. Russia's refining capacity by, there have been various estimates, but at least 20%, I think, was what Zelensky said.

That's also interesting because I've heard some experts say that, well, Russia can just export more crude, so, you know, what does it matter in the long run, right? Like if it can't refine oil, then it's just going to export crude oil. But the thing is that refined products are a lot more expensive than crude.

And so the companies in Russia––that are of course, are all under the control of the state, but are still, you know, private companies––they're going to incur a lot of losses from this. So there's definitely going to be an effect. Even though, even if you may see the spike in the expert of crude because the refining capacity has gone down.

So it's a lot of very difficult math and it's not kind of immediately obvious what's going to happen. But if the scale of the attacks continues, then in the long run it's definitely gonna be a growing problem.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, so it is against all of that background with genuine hardship created by the Russian campaign within Ukraine as well as a, a kind of excitement that there, while not reciprocal in character, there is, Ukraine is on offense in the energy sector in some ways, that a giant scandal erupts in domestic Ukrainian politics about, of all things, the energy sector.

So give us an overview of the scandal. What is the allegation and how serious is it at this stage?

Anastasiia Lapatina: So the scandal really began on Monday, November 10^th, when the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, which we call NABU, announced that it had uncovered a high-level criminal organization whose members basically built a large-scale corruption scheme to influence strategic enterprises in Ukraine’s energy sector.

So they announced that there was this operation called Midas, and they say that it was a 15-month long operation, and they've got thousands of hours of wiretapped conversations of people involved in this organization.

And all of this sort of uncovers large-scale corruption in the energy sector.

Benjamin Wittes: When you say––just I, I want to clarify terms. When you say organization, I take it you mean in what we would call a conspiracy. As in, it's not like a formal organization.

Anastasiia Lapatina: No no no. Like a criminal organization.

Benjamin Wittes: This is a criminal scheme. Inside the Ukrainian energy sector.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So the more NABU describes what actually happened and what even covered in statements, the more we learn that the scheme that they've uncovered concerns, mainly a firm called Energoatom. it's a Ukrainian state-owned company which operates all of Ukrainian nuclear power plants. Which is a huge responsibility, because four of them currently generate half of Ukraine's electricity.

So the nuclear power plants provide sort of the base load for all of the heavy industry and stuff like that. Energoatom is a company with massive financial flows and massive influence and responsibility.

And so, the scheme, what the scheme entailed, is that the company's contractors were for, were forced to pay 10 to 15% of the contract value in kickbacks to this criminal, in the words of NABU organization.

So the scheme was basically like if you were a contractor providing services or goods to Energoatom, in order to keep doing that, in order to keep being a supplier and also in order to actually get paid for your goods and services, you were supposed to also pay a bribe of 10 to 15% in your contract value to the company itself.

And so NABU said that the, there were a number of individuals involved in the scheme, including current and former government officials as well as some powerful businessmen. And we now know that the situation with the act like the actual individuals who were involved in it, the, their names, it's a bit tricky because Nabu has only confirmed, I think two or three individuals.

And a lot of others, it hasn't yet confirmed because the investigation is still sort of ongoing. And so they, they still have an issued notices of suspicion to every single person who was involved.

But the names of everyone involved have never nevertheless been leaked to big number of reputable Ukrainian outlets and also corroborated by lawmakers who have sources inside NABU and other law enforcement agencies.

So all of that is to say that while it may have not been officially confirmed in every single person's name, but we pretty much know exactly who was involved. And so that's where actually all of the sort of trouble lies, because the people who were involved include people close to President Zelensky, close to the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.

For example, one of the leaders of this criminal organization is Timur Mindich, a businessman who is a close friend of Zelensky and also his longtime business partner.

So before Zelensky became president, he co-owned a film production studio Kvartal 95 in translation.

That's how Zelensky made his career, made much of his wealth. And Mindich, this businessman, co-owned the company with Zelensky. And then when Zelensky became president, he transferred his shares.

So they've known each other for a very long time and they've been close personal friends and business partners.

And so this guy––who is a very interesting figure because I'm sure most Americans have never heard of him, because most Ukrainians actually have also not heard of him until like around 2024. Because he's never really had much of a public political life.

He's not like your typical Ukrainian oligarch, a person with massive wealth and influence, you know, and everyone sort of knows that person has political influence that he shouldn't have.

Mindich was never like that. He only started amassing influence in 2024. And so yeah, he was named as one of the leaders of the organization.

Other people who were implicated include two sitting members of Ukraine's cabinet. So, one of them is the current Ukrainian Minister of Justice––oh, actually, current until a few hours ago, when the parliament voted to fire him.

So, up until that moment, that person was the current Ukrainian Minister of Justice. German Halushchenko is his name. And another person implicated is Ukraine's Minister of Energy.

Both of those people were implicated in a very interesting way. So when NABU revealed the scheme itself, they also published snippets of those conversations. Remember I mentioned that they've said they've gathered thousands of hours of recorded conversations by wiretapping, like, Mindich’s apartment and stuff like that.

So they've actually published the snippets of some of these conversations, and you can hear the officials discussing the scheme.

And so in those conversations, you can hear people refer to the Minister of Energy and to the Minister of Justice. And what's interesting is that neither of them have been charged with anything. So NABU hasn't said that it believes that the two ministers were directly involved in the corruption of it all, but the people who were involved talked in very friendly terms about both ministers.

And, I mean, after all, this is sort of the largest––it's already been called the largest scandal in, you know, recent Ukrainian history, if not all of Ukrainian history, and it's happening in the energy sector.

And if you are the minister of energy and this is happening right under your nose, then you are definitely, like––regardless of whether she was charged or not, she still has political responsibility over the fact that it happened on her watch.

Benjamin Wittes: Okay, so what about Zelensky himself?

You know, somebody asked me about this the other day, and asked me about Zelensky. And I, the analogy that came to mind was, it's beginning to seem a little bit like the Ulysses S. Grant administration, where, you know, nothing seems to touch Zelensky personally, but the closer you are to him, you know, but the people surrounding him seem to be really scoundrels in pretty large numbers.

And there's a kind of question, could he really not have known about this? Could he really not have been involved in any of it?

Should we understand Zelensky as somebody who is probably corrupt himself? Should we understand Zelensky as somebody who trusts untrustworthy people? Or should we understand it as somebody who, you know, he has turned a blind eye to stuff that––like, how do you understand what his role in any of this is, and does any of it touch him personally?

Anastasiia Lapatina: So this is sort of the crux of it because––and before I dive into that question, another close personal friend of Zelensky’s, who is also the former deputy prime minister of Ukraine, was also implicated in the scheme.

And there are conversations, wiretapped conversations that describe how he was given hundreds of thousands of dollars via this scheme––so this obviously dirty money from the kickbacks––to build luxury homes in the Cleveland suburbs, and sort of embezzle money like that.

And this is also this man, the former deputy prime minister, a close personal friend of the president, who also undoubtedly became the deputy Prime Minister not least because he's a close personal friend of the president.

And so as you've said, all of it sort of revolves around Zelensky. Nothing directly points to him. So, you know, NABU didn't come out and say that, oh we caught the president of Ukraine red-handed.

The only direct mention of Zelensky in this whole scheme is that there is an episode in the tapes where you can hear President Zelensky allegedly calling the energy minister or the minister of justice because Mindich asked him to.

So there was a sort of a discussion of how Mindich is asking Zelensky to call the minister, and Zelensky reads the, his message and calls the minister. And you can hear the minister talking on the phone with the president. But you don't know, we don't know what the conversation was actually about.

So that was the only one sort of very direct mention of Zelensky himself in the scandal.

Benjamin Wittes: But there is one thing that ties Zelensky, if only indirectly, but very importantly, to the scandal. Which is that the last scandal in Ukraine was President Zelensky getting the law changed to bring NABU and its sister organization more directly under presidential authority.

They are currently independent. And everybody's understanding of that at the time was that Zelensky would––that there were these investigations that touched his friends.

And now we see what one of those investigations was––

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah.

Benjamin Wittes: ––it does seem like at a minimum, Zelensky can be accused not merely of tolerating corruption from people close to him, but of trying to––I don't think the word rig is too strong––rig investigative processes to relieve pressure on them.

Is that fair?

Anastasiia Lapatina: So, yes, you are right to bring up that that story that happened in July of 2025, this summer.

And that effort by Zelensky’s administration to take control over NABU and SAPO, which are independent by design specifically so they can go after the highest echelons of Ukrainian government.

That sparked the first mass protest in Ukraine since 2022, because it was perceived by everyone as an obvious power grab and an obvious effort by Zelensky to shield his friends from prosecution. And it's assumed––it's widely understood now that Operation Midas, which we learned about on Monday, was specifically the thing that sort of tipped Zelensky off in the summer.

So all that is to say that if there were no protests, if Zelensky and his allies in government were able to crush the independence of NABU and SAPO in the summer, it's––I mean, not just very likely, but I think sort of obvious that none of us would learn about Operation Midas or about Energoatom right now.

So I think, I think whether you think Zelensky or how much you think Zelensky is responsible depends on your own perception of the situation. Because it is true that there hasn't been any obvious sort of evidence that he himself is corrupt, or he himself is benefiting or, you know, getting bags of cash from anything. That just doesn't exist.

It is true that people loyal to him, his personal family, friends, people who've clearly made political careers thanks to the fact that he is their friend, all of those people who he let accumulate power, they are corrupt. That's a fact. Many of them are.

And so the question is now, is Zelensky directly implicated?

Is he part of all of these corruption schemes, in which case he is of course guilty?

Or is he just so incompetent at his job and so completely oblivious about what's happening right under his nose that people who are in his most intimate inner circle, right, people who have direct access to him, people who can walk into the president's office at any time and day for a meeting, et cetera, who are in constant contact with him––that those people, his friends, have embezzled, NABU said, at least a hundred million dollars, and the President just isn't aware of that?

Like, I think that is also, you know, that's a different kind of guilt, but it is also a problem, right? I don't think that leaves him sort of guilt-free.

Benjamin Wittes: There is a third possibility as well. Which is that, you know, in the middle of a war, he is tolerating things from the people who constitute his power base that, you know, in a different context, you wouldn't tolerate.

That's not a flattering picture of him at all, of course, but it is the kind of––

Anastasiia Lapatina: Possibility.

Benjamin Wittes: ––multitasking that you sometimes have to do, right? You've got, you know, you could imagine him making a sort of mental calculation––we cannot tolerate corruption in the military defense procurement sector, because then support from other countries will dry up.

But we can't fight every battle right now, the energy sector has always been a cesspool, I'm not going to––this is not where I'm, the hill I'm gonna die on while we're fighting the war.

That would be the more sophisticated version of the point you're making. Albeit again, not a flattering one for him.

Anastasiia Lapatina: I mean, yeah, the third option could just be that, you know, he may not be directly engaged in it. He may just be aware of it and choosing to not do anything about it.

Which again, you know, certainly is a huge problem. But I mean, also the way you put it is definitely way more sophisticated, I think, than the reality sort of suggests. Because, for example, one of the reasons why, is that the split between, ‘oh, the military sector is free of corruption because that matters and all other sectors kind of do what you want because we're at war’––that doesn't really exist, because according to NABU itself, Mindich was using this scheme not only to exert influence in the energy sector, but also to exert influence in the defense sector.

So, we are just now starting to learn the real, sort of, power that Mindich had. And it doesn't end with the energy. It actually goes into the military sector as well, and into the procurement there.

Benjamin Wittes: Interesting.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah.

Benjamin Wittes: So if I were Ukrainian. And I were, as you literally are right now, sitting in the dark––or not in the dark, only because of backup battery power––I would be pitchforks and torches about this.

You know, Ukrainians are asked to forgo power. They're being asked to forgo heat. And all in the name of fighting a war that people are very committed to.

But part of the package is not that a bunch of criminals get to walk off with a hundred million dollars of people's energy bills. For energy that, by the way, they're not predictably getting.

What has the reaction in Ukrainian society been to this? Are people furious? Are they dispirited? Is it kind of like well, that's what we expect anyway? What has the reaction been like?

Anastasiia Lapatina: I haven't seen yet any actual polling to suggest, you know, the––it's only been a few days since the whole thing unraveled, so there hasn't been yet any public polling on, like, the support for Zelensky and the societal trust for Zelensky.

But as much as you can sort of infer from my bubble and from social media, obviously everyone is furious.

And everyone is feeling sort of a new, a new low, right? Like, everyone is perceiving this as like, okay, things were bad, but this is––this is as bad as it has ever gotten in, like, in people's recent memory.

I've already seen and heard some journalists compare, comparing this moment, to like 2013, which is, like, Yanukovych, like the height of Yanukovych’s power right before it, like, the bubble broke and the revolution happened. People are just very furious about the fact that, yeah, the timing couldn't have been worse.

At the same time––and I think this is the view that I subscribe to personally more, which I also argue in my recent Lawfare piece––there have been some people who pointed out that, look, nothing that we learned from these revelations by NABU is anything, you know, deeply shocking about how the Ukrainian political system works.

I mean, we––everyone knows that Ukraine has a corruption problem in the government. It's never been a secret that Zelensky’s inner circle is engaged in that corruption.

Everyone also knows that the energy sector is one of the most lucrative in the country. I mean, most Ukrainian oligarchs, like actually, you know––and famous people with huge amounts of money, not like Mindich, like actual oligarchs––most of them have had stakes in energy. That's how they became oligarchs in the nineties.

And so everyone knows that the energy sector is rampant with corruption. So there was actually nothing profoundly new about this, apart from the specific scheme at play.

What was new, however, is the fact that this scheme was uncovered not how it would usually be by journalists or investigative journalists or anti-corruption activists or some opposition lawmakers.

This time––pretty much, I'd say, for the first time in history, in Ukrainian history, a criminal scheme of this level––touching so close to the president himself, like one handshake away––was uncovered by an actual government institution, right? By the anti-corruption bureau, which is a real institution with real detectives who have weapons, who have jurisdiction, who can prosecute people and go to court and make a case.

And that's like a novel thing in Ukrainian history, because Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have always been loyal to the president and under control of the president. And most of them remain under the control of the president.

There is a number of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, most of which, like the State Security Service––the SBU––they report to Zelensky and are widely perceived as loyal to him, essentially doing whatever he wants them to do.

NABU and SAPO are agencies that are not like that. They were created after the Revolution of Dignity as part of Ukraine's anti-corruption reform. And they are unique in that independence component.

They do not report to the president. They do not answer to the president. They essentially do whatever they want to root out corruption, to investigate corruption.

And so there is also this camp in the Ukrainian civil society right now, who are bringing up the fact that, look, the very fact that an actual government law enforcement agency uncovered this and was able to investigate the closest people to the president, like, that's an amazing achievement.

Because that's not something that could even be conceivable like 6, 7, 10 years ago. That that just never happened, right?

You could investigate previous, your predecessors, right? Zelensky could make the SBU or somebody else investigate Poroshenko, his predecessor.

But no one has ever been investigated as a sitting government to this scale. And so that's actually something to be celebrated. And it shows Ukraine's progress in its anti-corruption reform.

Benjamin Wittes: And so what happens now? Mindich, as I understand it, has fled the country.

Anastasiia Lapatina: He's in Israel, yes.

Benjamin Wittes: And we have, as of today, a casualty in the justice minister.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And also the energy minister being. Both of them.

Benjamin Wittes: And the energy minister. So what––is it over? What happens next, and what are you looking for over the next few days and weeks?

Anastasiia Lapatina: So actually, it looks like it's just starting, to be honest.

You know, today and yesterday were some pretty big days, because essentially from all the facts that we now have, this is the biggest corruption scandal definitely,, at the very least, of the Zelensky presidency. So this is the biggest political crisis Zelensky himself has experienced and we as a country have experienced since the full invasion.

And as you've mentioned, two ministers were fired and the government also announced a reboot of the management of Energoatom and also a bunch of other state-owned energy companies, whose management is going to be rebooted, and there is also going to be supposedly a full audit of all of those state-owned energy companies.

So, you know, we're looking forward to seeing that. But there have also been a lot of reporting, yesterday and today, that Zelensky may be considering firing his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.

And Yermak is really seen as this symbol of Ukraine's sort of growing authoritarian streak, right? This monopolization of power that is happening under Zelensky, Yermak is seen as sort of the architect of that.

And it's an open question what the dynamic is there between Zelensky and Yermak. I really don't think it's sort of like ‘the tsar doesn't know’ dynamic where Yermak is just doing all of these evil things consolidating power and Zelensky is just completely unaware. I don't think it's that.

But he does see Yermak as sort of his go-to right-hand man, the sort of grey cardinal of Ukrainian politics.

Benjamin Wittes: He's kind of an enforcer type.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So he's sort of, you know, Zelensky deals with these big picture things, gives speeches, dramatic speeches at parliaments around the world, and, you know, sort of gathering allies around himself.

And Yermak is sort of getting stuff done at home. And the way he's been getting stuff done at home is really suboptimal to say the least, where he's been consolidating a lot of power.

It's widely known that no one can really get any power in the Ukrainian government without Yermak allowing them to do that, right. As in, like, no one can become a minister if Yermak doesn't want them to become a minister. Stuff like that.

And so there has been growing reporting that Zelensky is considering firing Yermak to sort of show that he's willing to overhaul the system.

And so I'm looking forward to that. And it might be another episode, another podcast episode, if that happens, because that would be truly revolutionary and truly transformational.

Benjamin Wittes: Explain one thing about that. What is the connection between Yermak and this scandal?

Is it just that he's supposed to be the eyes and ears, and he's supposed to be the sort of chief of staff who's actually in a hands-on way running things on Zelensky’s behalf, and so it's a failure on his part? Or is there some more direct connection between Yermak and this?

Anastasiia Lapatina: So that's a very interesting, another open question so far. So NABU and SAPO have been––and SAPO is NABU’s sister organization, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the Specialized Prosecutor's office––they've been sort of drip-feeding this information about the scheme.

Like, they would publish some snippets on Monday and then a bit more snippets on Tuesday. So we actually keep learning new details.

And so we have recently learned that there was another player in this scheme, in the Energoatom scheme, whose code name––and all of these people have code names, it's pretty funny in Ukrainian, all of the people involved in the scheme––so there is another player whose name is Alibaba, which is hilarious, and there have been speculations in the Ukrainian media––and also some lawmakers, some opposition lawmakers have said––that supposedly that person is Yermak.

Because Yermak’s name is, in Ukrainian, “Andriy” and patronymic is “Borysovytch,” so it's A and B. And so people have kind of connected that, probably that's why he's Alibaba in these tapes.

So NABU and SAPO haven't confirmed that yet. We don't really know many details yet. But we do know that there is somebody there who was also one of the sort of leading figures of the scheme. That's his code name, and people are pointing the finger and saying that that could be Yermak.

So again, it's not officially confirmed yet, but this is a part of the conversation. And it's another one of those things that everyone is sort of with their popcorn waiting to find out what that is.

Benjamin Wittes: Well, our popcorn, Nastya, is you. And so, we will expect since this stuff mostly does not get written about in English, except by a few journalistic outfits, we will rely on you to keep us posted.

There are, for those who want to read more about this, Nastya has a lengthy piece about the corruption scandal and a previous from last week lengthy piece about the Russian energy attacks as well as Ukrainian refinery deep-strike attacks.

Those are both on Lawfare. Nastya, thank you so much for joining us today amidst the power outages in Kyiv.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Thank you for having me.

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