On Wednesday, the Internal Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced the dismissal of two senior officials named in an investigation linked to fraudulent call centers.
The Internal Security Service said that its head, Oleksandr Poklad, relieved two senior officials in the agency from their duties after their names were included in an investigation conducted by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABO).
He added in a statement via Telegram that Boklad expects a “transparent, objective and fair” investigation to be conducted by the office, despite the tension between the two institutions. The dispute between them worsened last year after President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to reduce the independence of the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
For its part, the Anti-Corruption Bureau said that a security official “threatened to use a firearm” and prevented investigators from entering sites where they were carrying out inspections on Wednesday.
According to the office, senior officials in the Security Service, the Public Prosecution Service, and the police paid bribes to members of law enforcement agencies in exchange for turning a blind eye to the activities of fraudulent call centers.
He added that the fraud operations targeted Ukrainians and foreigners, and included the sale of drugs, the production of counterfeit cigarettes and counterfeit foreign currencies.
He accused a criminal group of at least 12 people of organizing “assaults, kidnappings and planned attacks.”
The investigations prompted Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko to resign in September after his offices were searched, noting that he denied committing any violations.
According to the Global Initiative to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, based in Switzerland, the fraudulent call center sector in Ukraine provides jobs for about 60,000 people, equivalent to about two-thirds of workers in the banking sector.
The initiative estimates that these activities generate revenues that could reach $1 billion per month.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview on Wednesday that he hopes that gains made by Democrats in the US midterm elections will provide more support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
He stated that he hopes that the changes that will result from the Democrats' control of the House of Representatives and the Senate next year will be in Kiev's favor.
He explained: “I am also grateful to the Republicans, but the Democrats are speaking more clearly about supporting and providing assistance to Ukraine.”
He added: “They are talking about renewing relations between the United States and Europe... Therefore, there is hope that a balance of power will be formed and that we will receive more support.”
Zelensky said that receiving more US aid may have an impact on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky made great efforts to strengthen the relationship with US President Donald Trump, especially after a tense meeting in the Oval Office in February 2025, when the Ukrainian president was accused of being “ungrateful” towards US aid. In recent weeks, Trump has taken several steps that show favoritism toward Russia, including an agreement to import Russian diesel and ease sanctions. But US-led trilateral talks with Ukraine and Russia are set to resume next week, after a pause of several months. When Donald Trump won his second presidential term, a wave of anxiety settled in European circles that had been accumulating as a result of the fears that emerged from his first stay in the White House, and from the promises he made during his election campaign, which ended up placing the traditional ally in the category of adversaries, and the veiled threat of undermining the European project. When the first results of the midterm elections appeared at dawn on Wednesday, and Democratic control of the Senate and House of Representatives was confirmed, an atmosphere of cautious relief prevailed in institutions and most European capitals. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who is playing all his cards in a fateful pre-general election late this month, deviated from it. He said: “American society voted yesterday against policies that cause poverty, against hatred and masculinity, against climate change denial, and against the benefits of elites.” Then he added: “This is what happened in Brazil, now in the United States, and soon in Spain.” But the major capitals in the Union chose not to comment directly on the results of the American midterm elections, and so did the European institutions, realizing that the harsh defeat that befell Trump’s approach is a strong message of protest with very local motives: against the increasing high cost of living, the expulsion and mistreatment of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, the reduction of public health services, and the rampant unbridled corruption in the president’s family circle, and that the loss of the majority in Congress will not detract from his very broad foreign policy powers. No, it is likely to push him to focus on them more. To regain the prestige he lost internally. All European circles that Asharq Al-Awsat gathered after the release of the final results of the midterm elections tend to believe that the defeat will motivate the American President to redouble his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, and open the doors for his family and partners to more lucrative deals in Russia before he leaves the White House. The Europeans fear that he will not hesitate to use the means and tools at his disposal to push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky towards more surrender concessions, such as the vital intelligence information that Washington provides to the Ukrainian armed forces, the “Starlink” satellite service, and weapons that the United States has been selling to Kiev for some time. The Europeans are unlikely to succeed in pushing Trump to change his policy regarding the Ukraine war, especially with regard to the sanctions imposed on Russia, many of which he recently lifted, unless a sufficient number of Republican representatives who reject this policy come out of the ranks and join the new Democratic majority that opposes abandoning Ukraine in the most critical stages of the war. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently stated that Russia lost 52,000 soldiers killed and wounded in the past month alone, and that this is an “unsustainable number.” On the Atlantic front, the Europeans do not expect more shocks and surprises after the recent episodes of pressure to increase military spending and reach a new agreement with Denmark over Groenland. However, some fear that, in the event of renewed attacks against Iran, Trump will resort to escalation in the face of countries that previously refrained from opening their airspace, or using their joint bases, to American warplanes. But what is most comforting among circles that fear the consequences of the rise of far-right forces and parties on the European project, and its compatibility with the goals of the new American national security strategy, which includes supporting resistance to this project, is that the circle of those who tend to emerge from under the Trump umbrella is likely to expand in the far-right camp, especially after the fall of Orban in Hungary, and Bolsonaro in Brazil, and after far-right parties were prominent in Europe, such as the “Rally for the Republic.” In France, the “Brothers of Italy” have taken this path, knowing that other parties such as the Spanish “Vox” and the “AfD” remain loyal to the American president. European socialists were the most celebrated of the democratic victory in the US midterm elections, as the head of the Socialist bloc in the European Parliament, Erachi Garci, said: “This is the blue wave, and it is the beginning of the end of Trump’s wars, illegal tariffs, and attacks on the democratic system.” As for the conservative Popular Bloc in the European Parliament, it made do with a brief statement that said: “The result of these elections was clear, and the European Union is ready to cooperate with the new Congress, with its two wings, democratic and political.” The main lesson that European analysts draw from this resounding defeat suffered by the Republicans and Trump in the US midterm elections is that democracy is still alive in the country that celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding this year, and that the democratic system is always capable of containing totalitarian excesses and preventing their spread or consolidation. But there are those who warn that this defeat may inflame the wounded president’s inherent vindictive tendencies and push him towards further escalation on more than one front.
