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The long story behind the arrest of ex-Minister Herman Halushchenko: The latest chapter in Ukraine’s wartime energy scandal

Source: Meduza

In mid-February, detectives from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) apprehended former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko as he attempted to cross the border on a Warsaw-bound train. Now facing charges of money laundering and involvement in a criminal network, Halushchenko is the latest high-profile official ensnared in the corruption scandal known as “Mindichgate.” According to NABU, the scheme’s architect was Timur Mindich, a former business partner of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Investigators allege that the officials behind the scheme collected more than $100 million in kickbacks from the state-owned nuclear operator, Energoatom, even as Russian strikes battered the country’s power grid. For Meduza, Ukrainian journalist Konstantin Skorkin explores the rise of Herman Halushchenko and his alleged role in Ukraine’s biggest wartime corruption case.

From the president’s office to Energoatom

Herman Halushchenko, a 52-year-old native of Lviv, is a long-time fixture in Ukraine’s political leadership. A lawyer by training, he began his career in government under President Leonid Kuchma, holding various positions between 1997 and 2005 in the presidential administration and the Foreign Ministry. He remained in the presidential administration after Viktor Yushchenko came to power and later, under Viktor Yanukovych, moved to the Justice Ministry, where he served as director of the judicial department from 2011 to 2013.

Halushchenko’s path into the energy sector began in 2013, when he was appointed legal director at the state-owned nuclear power company Energoatom. He worked there until early 2014, joining the team of Andriy Derkach, the informal overseer of Ukraine’s nuclear sector who was known for placing allies in key energy posts.

The connection would later draw media scrutiny. In 2022, Derkach defected to Russia and was rewarded with a seat in the Federation Council as a senator from the Astrakhan region, as well as the title Hero of Russia. Halushchenko himself claims he hasn’t been in contact with Derkach since 2019.

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After leaving Energoatom, Halushchenko taught at the Institute of International Relations at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, practiced law, and represented major Ukrainian businesses in lawsuits against Russia over the unlawful seizure of assets in occupied Crimea.

From 2017 to 2020, he also worked alongside leading international lawyers on Ukraine’s cases against Russia at the International Court of Justice. The cases concerned alleged violations of conventions on financing terrorism during the war in Donbas, and racial discrimination in connection with the repression of ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in occupied Crimea. The proceedings concluded in January 2024, with the court partially upholding Ukraine’s claims.

After Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidency in 2019, Halushchenko attempted to return to government, running unsuccessfully for the post of state secretary at the Economy Ministry. Instead, he served as an adviser to Economy Minister Tymofiy Mylovanov from 2019 to 2020.

Then, with the backing of Zelensky’s top aide, Serhiy Shefir, he returned to Energoatom — this time as the company’s vice president. Journalists later reported that following his appointment, companies linked to oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov and Ihor Kolomoisky were able to purchase substantial volumes of electricity at reduced prices.

Energy and justice

On April 29, 2021, Halushchenko was appointed Ukraine’s energy minister, again with Shefir’s support. Even before the vote, opposition lawmakers had pointed to his past ties to the “oligarch Derkach.”

Once in office, Halushchenko began installing loyalists in senior roles across state-owned energy companies. Over time, he pushed out officials he disliked and members of independent supervisory boards, created at the insistence of Western partners to increase transparency in the sector.

The Ukrainian outlet Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (“Mirror of the Week”) described the process as placing the energy industry under “manual control,” reporting that Halushchenko acted with the approval of then-presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak. The New York Times later reported that Halushchenko had enabled a large-scale corruption scheme at Energoatom by blocking “undesirable” candidates from joining the supervisory board.

Criticism of his staffing decisions from representatives of Ukraine’s international donors — including European Bank for Reconstruction and Development official Arvid Tuerkner and E.U. Ambassador to Kyiv Katarína Mathernová — did nothing to alter the course of events at Energoatom.

After Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s energy infrastructure came under relentless attack. Lawmakers and industry experts repeatedly criticized the Energy Ministry for failing to properly fortify critical facilities. Despite promises of a three-tier protection system, by the fall of 2025, the third level — massive concrete structures designed to shield energy sites from missile and air strikes — was only 54 percent complete. Halushchenko also drew criticism for pushing to purchase Russian-made nuclear reactors from Bulgaria for the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant (a deal that hasn’t yet been finalized).

At the same time, members of his team faced corruption allegations. In the summer of 2024, three senior officials and Deputy Energy Minister Oleksandr Kheilo were formally designated as suspects — a procedural status under Ukrainian law — in a corruption case. Investigators said they had demanded $500,000 from companies in exchange for paperwork allowing mining equipment to be evacuated from combat zones.

The ministry’s communications strategy also came under scrutiny. That same summer, Halushchenko publicly denied reports of an accident at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant in the Mykolaiv region. According to Ukrainian journalists and members of parliament, a technical malfunction had caused a short circuit; current transformers caught fire, forcing one reactor unit and several transmission lines offline.

Halushchenko dismissed the reports as “Russian fake news.” Shortly afterward, however, experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that a transformer failure had indeed led to the shutdown of one of the plant’s reactor units. Members of parliament accused the minister of lying.

Amid the mounting scandals, Halushchenko was moved to head the Justice Ministry during a government reshuffle in July 2025. But he didn’t have time to establish himself in the new post.

Operation Midas

By the fall of 2025, Halushchenko himself had come under scrutiny from Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption bodies. In November, detectives from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) searched the former energy minister’s home as part of an investigation into the alleged embezzlement of funds allocated for protective structures at energy facilities. Two days later, he was suspended from his post as justice minister.

The case was part of a sweeping NABU operation dubbed “Midas,” launched in 2024 and spanning more than a year. Searches targeting senior officials began in earnest in the fall of 2025. According to NABU, a group of politicians and politically connected businessmen had taken kickbacks from companies seeking contracts with the state nuclear energy firm Energoatom. Investigators identified businessman Timur Mindich, a friend and former business associate of President Zelensky, as a central figure in the scheme.

Mindich himself was never detained. Shortly after his name surfaced in the news, he left Ukraine for Israel. Halushchenko, though considered one of the key figures in what Ukrainian media dubbed “Mindichgate,” didn’t immediately follow suit. In mid-November, Zelensky removed him from the National Security and Defense Council. Soon afterward, parliament dismissed him as justice minister.

In December 2025, journalists reported that Halushchenko’s 18-year-old son, Maksym, was studying at one of Switzerland’s most expensive colleges, where annual tuition runs about $200,000 — more than the former minister’s official income. Around the same time, speaking to Ukrainian reporters who located him in Israel, Mindich acknowledged that he knew Halushchenko but denied giving him any instructions related to corruption at Energoatom.

Fearing arrest, Halushchenko eventually attempted to leave Ukraine. He didn’t succeed. On the night of February 14–15, 2026, NABU officers detained him aboard a Kyiv–Warsaw train. The next day, he was formally designated a suspect on charges of participating in a criminal organization and laundering illicit funds. Investigators say he co-founded a foundation registered in Anguilla, a British territory in the Caribbean, whose accounts received proceeds from illegal activity in the energy sector.

Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court remanded him into custody, setting bail at 425 million hryvnias (about $9.8 million). The European Commission welcomed the arrest as evidence that Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption institutions continue to function even during wartime. Halushchenko claims he cannot afford bail and will be kept in pre-trial detention “for years.”

At a court hearing on February 17, new details emerged about Halushchenko’s alleged role in the Mindich scheme. Although prosecutors from SAPO described his position within the criminal group as “low-ranking,” investigators say he earned $9 million from the Energoatom scheme between 2020 and 2025. He denies the allegation.

For now, he will remain in custody until mid-April, when the next hearing in his case is expected to take place.

A broader reckoning

Halushchenko’s arrest may prove to be only the beginning of a broader reckoning within Ukraine’s political elite.

According to Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a lawmaker from the opposition party Holos, former top presidential aide Serhiy Shefir, who had once lobbied for Halushchenko’s appointment, left the country shortly after Halushchenko’s arrest. He was reportedly spotted first at Warsaw’s airport and later in Geneva, where Halushchenko’s family lives. Shefir later said he had traveled abroad “on business” and intended to return to Ukraine.

For now, neither NABU nor the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) has publicly signaled that other senior officials are under investigation in connection with the so-called Mindich scheme. But investigators reportedly discovered more than 500 dossiers in the businessman’s possession — files on officials, members of parliament, ministers, and security officers. That suggests Halushchenko’s arrest may not be the last in what Ukrainian media have dubbed “Mindichgate.” The only question is whether prosecutors can gather enough evidence to link others to the alleged corruption network.

Public opinion appears to favor the anti-corruption drive. According to polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), roughly half of respondents say they trust NABU — a significantly higher level of confidence than that enjoyed by the police, prosecutors, or the courts. Fifty-seven percent believe there have already been “positive changes” in the fight against corruption.

The stakes are especially high given the dire state of Ukraine’s energy system after Russian strikes this winter. Allegations of theft in the sector resonate sharply with the public. The fallout has weighed on President Zelensky’s approval ratings: KIIS found that public trust in him fell from 63 percent in the first half of December to 55 percent in the second.