Editor's note: The story is being updated.
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law passed by the parliament on July 31 that restores the independence of two principal anti-corruption bodies after a closely-watched vote.
In the first livestreamed vote since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, 331 lawmakers approved the bill in two back-to-back readings, with none voting against it.
The law reverses legislation passed last week that effectively destroyed the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor (SAPO), two agencies founded as part of the post-EuroMaidan anti-graft reforms.
"I want to thank all the lawmakers for passing my bill, now a law. I have just signed the document, and the text will be published immediately," Zelensky said on his Telegram channel.
"There are guarantees for the proper, independent operation of anti-corruption bodies and all law enforcement agencies of our state."
The initial controversial bill, quickly pushed through by Zelensky's lawmakers and signed by the president on July 22, sparked mass demonstrations across the country and backlash from Ukraine's international partners.
Protests against the initial bill have lasted several days in Kyiv and other cities. Demonstrators have gathered outside the Mariinskyi Palace, the presidential residence, and the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, for another rally ahead of the crucial vote on July 31.
Following the negative response abroad and at home, Zelensky proposed a new bill only two days later to restore the independence of the anti-corruption bodies.
Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC), a watchdog, supported Zelensky's initiative, saying it would "restore the principles previously dismantled by the Verkhovna Rada."
Why was last week's law controversial?
Last week's law expanded the prosecutor general's authority over cases handled by the SAPO and NABU. It also allowed the prosecutor general to issue binding instructions to NABU, reassign cases outside the agency, and delegate SAPO's authority to other prosecutors.
Anti-corruption activists and opposition lawmakers said the changes dismantled safeguards that protect both bodies from political interference, while the bill's proponents claimed it aimed to combat alleged Russian influence within the agencies.
After the law was passed, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other European leaders appealed to Zelensky to stress the importance of anti-corruption infrastructure, a key condition for Ukraine's EU accession efforts.
The European bloc also issued a private warning to Kyiv, saying that failure to reverse the controversial legislation could result in the suspension of certain funding programs, the Ukrainian media reported.
Ukraine is heavily dependent on foreign aid amid Russia's full-scale war. The EU and its member states have made available $180 billion in economic, military, and humanitarian assistance to the war-torn country since 2022.
The EU has already welcomed the latest bill reversing the reform.
"The (Verkhovna) Rada corrected last week’s damaging vote undermining NABU’s & SAPO’s independence," said Marta Kos, the EU's enlargement commissioner.
"Today’s law restores key safeguards, but challenges remain."
Response from lawmakers
The July 31 vote in the parliament was preceded by statements from both opponents and supporters of last week's reform — as well as a physical altercation among a group of lawmakers.
Dmytro Kostiuk, a lawmaker from Zelensky's Servant of the People parliamentary group who voted for the controversial bill on July 22, claimed that he and his colleagues were pressured to support it. He also announced he is leaving Zelensky's parliamentary group in protest.
"There are many questions about the work of NABU and SAPO, but it was the creation of an anti-corruption infrastructure that was the main result of the EuroMaidan Revolution," he said.
Earlier, a lawmaker from the Servant of the People party told the Kyiv Independent on condition of anonymity that most party members — without fully understanding the details — thought the July 22 bill came from the president and had been coordinated with U.S. and European partners.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, opposition lawmaker for the Holos party, said that today's vote is "only the first step toward restoring the public's trust in the government."
Talking to the Kyiv Independent after the vote, Yurchyshyn noted that elections are the usual way to "restore trust" in democracies, but under martial law imposed due to Russia’s war, they cannot be held.
"Public trust in the government would be strengthened by bringing top corruption cases to court and ending pressure on the media and civil society activists, such as in the case of Vitaliy Shabunin," Yurchyshyn said.
Shabunin is Ukraine's leading anti-corruption activist facing charges for fraud and military evasion, an accusation his team dismissed as a political vendetta.
"We need unity to defeat Russia. But there can be no true unity between society and the government if the government focuses on closed-door deals instead of defending the public interest," Yurchyshyn added.
Anti-corruption efforts in the crosshairs
The backlash against the July 22 bill was compounded by other controversies, including charges against Shabunin and other setbacks in anti-corruption reforms.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko's new cabinet again did not appoint Oleksandr Tsyvinsky as the new head of the economic crimes bureau, despite his backing among a selection committee and a looming deadline by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Reforming the Bureau of Economic Security (BEB) — which was created in 2021 to investigate economic crimes — is a critical component of Ukraine's broader commitments to both the IMF and the European Union.
The IMF originally set a February 2025 deadline for the appointment, but extended it to the end of July after Kyiv missed the initial benchmark.
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