kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies announced Wednesday that they are investigating senior officials in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, a day after the country’s recently fired defense minister called national elections despite the ongoing fight against the Russian invasion. The revelation marked another test of Zelenskyy’s political resilience as Ukraine’s war with its largest neighbor stretches into its fifth year. a former legislator, which involved senior officials of the presidential office and others, according to a joint statement by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. More details will be released later, the agencies said in a joint statement. Zelenskyy did not make any public comments on the investigation, but issued a decree removing Iryna Mudra from the position of deputy director of the President’s Office. Zelenskyy continues to be dogged by high-level corruption investigations. Last year, his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, resigned and was later named a suspect in a major corruption investigation involving a luxury construction project in the biggest threat to Zelenskyy’s government since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Also last year, a major embezzlement and bribery scandal involving the state nuclear energy company led to the resignations of Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers. The European Union has identified deep-rooted corruption as one of the main obstacles to Ukraine’s desired membership in the bloc. Zelenskyy’s former loyal aide wants wartime elections. Zelenskyy is already under pressure from last month’s firing of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, one of the most senior members of his team and a close ally since he helped Zelenskyy win the 2019 presidential election. Zelenskyy, seeking to reconcile tensions between the Defense Ministry’s young, tech-savvy innovators and Ukraine’s Soviet-trained battlefield-experienced leaders, risked angering both sides by reorganize its wartime leadership. He ousted both Fedorov, whose changes in military procurement aimed to root out corruption, and commander-in-chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi. That sparked days of street protests in support of Fedorov. For Zelenskyy, it was the second time in a year that a wartime decision sparked a strong public reaction, after he took steps in mid-2025 to limit the powers of anti-corruption agencies. Fedorov, in a video posted to YouTube late Tuesday, called for elections in Ukraine in an explosive statement that appeared to directly confront Zelenskyy, who says elections cannot be held under current martial law because of the war. “We must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that allows Ukraine to restore a full democratic process even in the midst of a protracted war,” Fedorov said. Subscribe to Morning Wire: Our flagship newsletter breaks down the day’s biggest headlines. He said Ukraine faces a systemic crisis in the way it is governed, arguing that the current system is geared toward protecting itself and resisting change. He also condemned corruption among officials without naming anyone, saying it had weakened Ukraine’s ability to fight the war. Zelenskyy’s office had no immediate comment on Fedorov’s speech. It was not immediately clear whether Fedorov’s call to vote would resonate with Ukrainians. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has opposed negotiating a peace deal directly with Zelenskyy, claims the Ukrainian president is an illegitimate leader because his term expired in 2024. Ukraine’s parliament approved Zelenskyy’s candidate, Yevhenii Khmara, as the new defense minister in a vote on Wednesday, a move that effectively closes the door on Fedorov’s return to the position, which he has sought, in the near future. Lawmakers also gave their consent for Andrii Sybiha to remain as Foreign Minister after taking the position on an interim basis. The political noise comes after Ukraine’s successes in the war. The political disorder follows recent successes in the war over Ukraine. Using its innovative drone technology, it has repeatedly attacked Russian oil facilities, causing fuel shortages. It has also shocked the Russian public with the warehouse strike at Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, and the stalling of frontline advances by Russia’s largest military. But Zelenskyy has failed to gain traction in U.S.-led peace efforts, and Ukraine is at the mercy of Russia’s ballistic missiles because there are no more American-made Patriot interceptors due to low international stocks. In its latest attack on oil facilities, a drone hit an oil refinery in Ufa, in Russian Bashkortostan, its governor Radiy Khabirov said, quoted by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) east of the Ukrainian border. There are three oil refineries in Ufa, and all three have been attacked before. Russian air defenses intercepted 453 Ukrainian drones overnight over multiple Russian regions, as well as over occupied Crimea and the Black Sea, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Wednesday. The Defense Ministry said Russian forces on Tuesday night attacked a bulk carrier in the Black Sea, southeast of Odessa, carrying military equipment. On Wednesday, the Russian military attacked what it said were fuel and lubricant storage tanks for the Ukrainian military in the southern port of Chornomorsk. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, a Russian drone attacked a minibus in the southern Kherson region on Wednesday morning, killing four people, said Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration. Four women were also injured in the attack and were hospitalized, he said. Additionally, a Russian drone crashed into a civilian car in the city of Kherson, the region’s capital, on Wednesday, killing a woman, Prokudin said. Amid the fighting, Russia and Ukraine each sent home 103 prisoners of war on Wednesday, according to Zelenskyy and the Russian Defense Ministry.___Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.___Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
