Former Prosecutor General Accuses Anti-Corruption Chiefs of Plotting Violence in Austria
Ruslan Kravchenko claims officials from NABU and SAPO sent a team to harm him, while his unexplained absence from Ukraine since September remains a focal point of the dispute.
By Fatou Mitchell ·
Ukraine’s former top prosecutor is claiming that his own government orchestrated an attempt on his life in Europe. Ruslan Kravchenko, who served as the country’s prosecutor general, has detailed a specific conspiracy involving senior anti-corruption officials and military intelligence. He says the plan was to use violence to silence him while he was abroad.
Kravchenko stated that the heads of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office requested the action. He alleged that the instructions for this group came directly from the President's Office. According to his account, two members of the Defence Intelligence unit known as Artan were detained in Austria. He identified Viktor Torkotiuk, the commander of that unit, as being present in the country during the detentions. Kravchenko claimed Torkotiuk was offered a promotion in exchange for his involvement.
The former prosecutor general noted that one of the detained servicemen had previously worked in the NABU’s surveillance division. He said he received information about the dispatched group in September. Although he attributed the orders to the President's Office, Kravchenko admitted he did not have reliable information identifying the specific individuals who issued them. He presented these claims in a statement released on social media.
Kravchenko’s presence in Austria has been a subject of scrutiny since September. He left Ukraine in the overnight hours of September 13. A signed order authorized a five-day trip to Paris for hearings on Ukrainian children at the Council of Europe. However, his name was not listed among the participants in that discussion. His official visit ended on September 18, but he did not return to his post. Mariana Haiovska, a spokesperson for the prosecutor general's office, confirmed to media that he had not returned to work by September 21.
The dispute has extended to Ukrainian journalists who were searching for Kravchenko in Vienna. On October 8, reporter Mykhailo Tkach and cameraman Yaroslav Bondarenko were detained. Austria's Interior Ministry initially suspected Tkach of espionage, a claim that was later dropped. Vienna prosecutors said the detention was based on eyewitness testimony. Tkach described armed, masked men breaking his car windows and pulling both journalists onto the road. He said one man knelt on his neck while he identified himself as a journalist.
The journalists were accused of spying for Ukrainian military intelligence and harming Austria. Tkach suggested that testimony from people connected to Kravchenko triggered the detention. He noted that investigators knew they were journalists by the time questioning began. Bondarenko suffered injuries during the detention. Sevgil Musaieva, the editor-in-chief of the news outlet, confirmed Tkach’s release on October 9. Tkach was in Vienna when the military personnel were detained and was in Monaco shortly before a separate incident linked to the allegations.
Kravchenko also connected his case to a June 29 explosion in Monaco that injured Vadym Yermolaiev, a sanctioned Ukrainian businessman. Three people were hurt in that incident, two of them seriously. Yermolaiev later accused Ukrainian Defence Intelligence personnel of an assassination attempt in a letter to the press. He sought an independent investigation into the blast. Kravchenko said Ukrainian prosecutors were handling that case and claimed to have knowledge of its circumstances.
