Ukraine's anti-corruption court approves UAH 1.1bn plea deal in seized fuel case

Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) on 24 September approved a plea agreement with a former acting head of the Presidential Administration in the case of seized petroleum products, under which he is to pay UAH 1.1 billion to the state budget and to funds supplying the armed forces, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) said in a statement on its official channel. The case concerns events from March to June 2014, in which, according to NABU, the convicted man used his official position to take possession of seized petroleum products, causing losses to the state of more than UAH 817 million.

He fully admitted guilt under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code, on abuse of office, and Part 1 of Article 255, on participation in a criminal organisation, and agreed to give incriminating testimony, according to NABU. The statement does not name him.

The agreement, as NABU describes it, includes no prison term and no confiscation. The court did not order confiscation of property because that additional penalty under Article 255 was introduced by a law of June 2020, after the offence was committed, the statement says. The money terms are therefore the core of the deal, and SAPO has a stated remedy if they are not met.

What the agreement requires

Under the agreement, as set out by NABU, the former official undertakes to:

• compensate the state UAH 600 million in damages established at trial, paid into the general fund of the state budget in stages over two and a half years from the date the verdict takes effect;
• transfer UAH 400 million to the Come Back Alive foundation, or supply weapons of the same value from a list agreed with the foundation, within six months of that date;
• transfer UAH 100 million to the Sternenko Community charitable foundation for the purchase of weapons for Ukraine's Defence Forces within 30 days of that date;
• pay a fine of UAH 850,000 as the main penalty;
• pay a further fine of UAH 17,000 with a one-year ban on holding posts in state and local government bodies as an additional penalty.

The HACC checked the agreement against the public interest before approving it in its verdict, NABU says. If the convicted man does not meet the terms, the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) will ask the court to cancel the verdict and hear the case under the ordinary procedure, according to the statement.

The rest of the case

Suspicion was served on members of the criminal organisation in February 2024, and on 5 September 2025 the HACC approved a plea agreement with another defendant in the same case, according to NABU. That defendant received eight years in prison, suspended under Part 2 of Article 75 of the Criminal Code with three years' probation and without confiscation. He transferred UAH 40 million to the Defence Forces and must pay UAH 110 million to the state budget within three years of his verdict taking effect.

The two agreements together commit UAH 1.25 billion, against the UAH 817 million loss NABU attributes to the scheme, a Data Desk sum of the figures in the statement. Of the latest UAH 1.1 billion, UAH 600 million goes to the state budget and UAH 500 million to the two foundations.

What the statement does not say

The statement does not identify the other members of the criminal organisation, how many remain on trial, or whose conduct the testimony will concern. It does not say how the court weighed the payments to the foundations in its public-interest assessment, or how the weapons option will be valued and verified.

The HACC has approved other high-profile plea agreements this year. In the first half of 2026 the court approved one with a former head of the Supreme Court, according to NABU and SAPO's results for the period.

The next dated step is the verdict taking legal effect, which starts the 30-day, six-month and two-and-a-half-year payment deadlines. As of 17 October, neither NABU nor SAPO had reported an appeal or any further step in the case on their official channels (NABU, SAPO).