Ukrainian prosecutor general's whereabouts unknown after anti-corruption agencies launch operation, sources say

For more than 12 hours, no one outside his office could establish where Ukraine's prosecutor general was, according to sources cited by Ukrainska Pravda. Ruslan Kravchenko entered Kyiv's government quarter by car and had not been seen since, the sources said, after the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office launched the Carthage operation.

The Prosecutor General's Office gave a different account. It told Ukrainska Pravda that official information showed Kravchenko was at his workplace on Saturday. The publication said it had asked when he arrived, and where he had been on the evening of 4 September, when searches were carried out, and was awaiting a response.

Mykhailo Tkach, head of Ukrainska Pravda's investigative journalism team, linked the uncertainty to the office's denial the previous day that investigators had searched premises belonging to Kravchenko. "Let me remind you that yesterday, the Prosecutor General's Office denied UP's report about searches at Kravchenko's premises," Tkach said. He questioned how the office could assist an investigation if its head had avoided a search and potentially destroyed evidence.

Sources said NABU and SAPO searched premises belonging to Kravchenko, his deputy Mariia Vdovychenko and Oleh Kiper, head of Odesa Oblast Military Administration. The Prosecutor General's Office later denied that Kravchenko's premises had been searched, while saying it would fully cooperate with investigators examining a case involving scam call centres.

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Let me remind you that yesterday, the Prosecutor General's Office denied UP's report about searches at Kravchenko's premises. Apparently, they think that if the Prosecutor General is hiding, then the searches somehow don't count. This is probably the first time something like this has happened at such a high level. Yet just yesterday, the Prosecutor General's Office said it would assist with the investigation. But how is it supposed to assist if the person has fled the search and may have been destroying evidence for more than 12 hours?