Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) is investigating a massive pay-to-play scheme that allegedly siphoned tens of millions of euros from wartime energy procurement contracts at the state-owned nuclear company Energoatom, which falls under the Energy Ministry.
Among the seven suspects is Tymur Mindich, a longtime friend and former business partner of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Mindich co-founded the entertainment studio Kvartal 95 with Zelensky in the early 2000s and is regarded as the alleged mastermind of the scheme. Investigators say he fled Ukraine for Poland last week.
Mindich’s ties to the president are extensive and well-documented:
Zelensky used Mindich’s armored vehicle during the final weeks of his 2019 presidential campaign. In 2021, during COVID restrictions, Zelensky celebrated his birthday at Mindich’s luxury apartment.
The two men own properties in the same high-end Kyiv building. Ukrainian officials, anti-corruption activists, and experts describe Mindich’s rapid rise in influence after 2019 as directly linked to his personal proximity to Zelensky and the president’s inner circle.
The scandal earned its nickname — the “golden toilet” case — from two separate but colorful details that emerged during the probe:
▪︎ A former senior Ukrainian official told Fox News that Mindich himself owned an apartment fitted with gold-plated toilets.
▪︎ One of the other suspects, Russian colonel Alexey Safonov, was found to have a lavish gold toilet in his residence, where large sums of cash were allegedly concealed.
▪︎ Mindich was also a close business associate of oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, the billionaire who heavily financed Zelensky’s 2019 campaign and provided airtime on his TV channels.
Zelensky later distanced himself from Kolomoysky; the oligarch was arrested in 2023 on fraud and money-laundering charges.
Another figure named in the investigation is former Deputy Energy Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, whom sources describe as “very close” to the president’s family.
With Mindich reportedly now in Poland, any criminal proceedings against him are expected to take place in absentia. The case has become a major embarrassment for the Zelensky administration at a time when Ukraine is heavily reliant on Western financial and military aid.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky has not been named as a suspect in the ongoing National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) investigation into the €86 million Energoatom procurement scandal and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
The president has publicly endorsed the work of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies and has already imposed personal sanctions on his longtime friend Tymur Mindich, one of the main suspects.
In a post on X, Zelensky announced that the leadership of state-owned companies involved will be replaced and their finances subjected to thorough audits.
Despite the official distance, persistent rumours in Ukraine’s parliament (Verkhovna Rada) suggest the president may have indirectly benefited from or been aware of the scheme—claims that remain unproven and are strongly denied by Zelensky’s office.
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The timing of the scandal has inflamed public anger as Ukraine heads into its fourth winter of war. Daily Russian attacks on the energy grid have left millions of citizens facing prolonged power outages and heating shortages, making revelations of alleged high-level embezzlement from wartime energy programmes especially explosive.
Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars in Western military and financial aid. Brussels and Washington have repeatedly tied further support—and Ukraine’s EU membership ambitions—to demonstrable progress in rooting out corruption.
Earlier this year, Zelensky proposed legislation that would have limited some of NABU’s powers. He insisted the changes were meant to streamline government efficiency, but critics accused him of attempting to protect allies from scrutiny. After fierce domestic and international backlash, the president withdrew the controversial provisions.
