Lawmaker, formerly from Zelensky's parliament group, jailed for 9 years over 2020 graft case
Oleksandr Yurchenko, then a member of President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People parliamentary group, was charged in 2020 for soliciting bribes in exchange for legislative amendments.
The High Anti-Corruption Court in Ukraine sentenced former lawmaker Oleksandr Yurchenko to nine years in prison on September 11 for bribery, according to the Anti-Corruption Action Center watchdog. Yurchenko, who once belonged to President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People parliamentary group, was accused by Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) of soliciting bribes in 2020.
This marked one of the first high-profile corruption investigations involving Zelensky's allies, following Zelensky's and his party's electoral victories in 2019. The court convicted Yurchenko of bribery and ordered the confiscation of his assets, as well as barring him from holding certain public offices for three years. Yurchenko was caught in an undercover operation in August 2020, where it was alleged he offered bribes of $13,000 to propose legislative amendments and $200,000 to bribe other lawmakers.
He was subsequently expelled from Zelensky's parliamentary group and the President publicly stated that any official caught taking a bribe would face imprisonment. The case also drew attention to then-Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, who initially blocked bribery charges against Yurchenko but later authorized them due to public pressure on September 17, 2020.
Written by urgent.news from Kyiv Independent's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
