Zelensky tries to limit backlash over law curbing anti-graft agencies' autonomy

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky promised a quick new plan on July 23 to fight corruption, after a law curbing the independence of anti-graft agencies triggered the first street protests of the war and rare rebukes from European allies.

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Opposition lawmakers and European officials called on July 23 for Kyiv to reverse the law, which Mr. Zelensky signed overnight.

It was rushed through Parliament on July 22, a day after the security services arrested two anti-corruption officials for suspected Russian ties.

In his nightly televised address, Mr. Zelensky said the corruption-fighting agencies — an investigating agency known as Nabu and a prosecutor's office known as Sapo — would continue to function "but without any Russian influence".

"It all must be cleansed," he said.

In the morning, he met officials including the heads of Nabu and Sapo and said he would unveil a new plan to fight corruption within two weeks.

"We hear society," he wrote on Telegram. "We all have a common enemy — the Russian occupiers, and the protection of the Ukrainian state requires sufficient strength of the law enforcement and anti-corruption systems, and therefore a real sense of justice."