Kravchenko alleges plot against him in Austria but leaves absence from Ukraine unexplained

Former Ukrainian prosecutor general Ruslan Kravchenko has alleged that senior anti-corruption officials requested a group be sent to Austria to commit violence against him on instructions from the President's Office. In a social media statement, he did not explain why he had stayed abroad after the end of an official visit in September.

Kravchenko said he received information in September that individuals had been dispatched to carry out unlawful violence against him. He alleged that the request came from the heads of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, known as NABU, and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, or SAPO. He also claimed that two members of Ukrainian Defence Intelligence's Artan military unit had been detained in Austria.

According to Kravchenko, one of those servicemen had previously worked in NABU's surveillance unit. He said Artan commander Viktor Torkotiuk was also in Austria when the detentions took place and alleged that Torkotiuk had been offered a promotion in return for his involvement. Although Kravchenko attributed the group's instructions to the President's Office, he acknowledged that he lacked reliable information identifying who had issued them.

Kravchenko also directed attention to Ukrainska Pravda journalists who had been searching for him in Vienna. He claimed Austrian authorities were investigating four people, including two representatives of the outlet. He noted that journalist Mykhailo Tkach had been in Vienna during the military personnel's detention and in Monaco shortly before a separate incident that Kravchenko linked to his allegations.

Kravchenko left Ukraine overnight on September 13 to 14. An order he signed authorised a five-day visit to Paris for hearings on Ukrainian children under the auspices of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. His name, however, was absent from the discussion's participant list. The trip ended on September 18, and prosecutor general's office spokesperson Mariana Haiovska told Ukrainska Pravda that he had not returned to work by September 21.

Tkach and cameraman Yaroslav Bondarenko were detained in Vienna on October 8 while working on an assignment to locate Kravchenko. Austria's Interior Ministry said Tkach had been suspected of espionage, but that suspicion was subsequently not substantiated. Vienna prosecutors attributed the journalists' detention to eyewitness testimony, without answering several questions from the outlet, including how its reliability had been checked.

On October 9, Ukrainska Pravda editor-in-chief Sevgil Musaieva said Tkach had been released, although the newsroom had not yet reached him, and reported that Bondarenko had suffered injuries during detention. Tkach later said armed, masked men broke his car windows and pulled both journalists onto the road. He said one man knelt on his neck while he repeatedly identified himself as a journalist.

Tkach said they were accused of spying for Ukrainian military intelligence, participating in a criminal organisation and harming Austria. On October 14, he suggested testimony from people connected to Kravchenko might have triggered the detention. He said Ukrainska Pravda had sought Austrian investigative materials to identify the witnesses and that investigators knew they were journalists by the time questioning began.

Kravchenko also drew parallels with a June 29 explosion in Monaco that injured sanctioned Ukrainian businessman Vadym Yermolaiev and people close to him. Three people were hurt, two very seriously. Yermolaiev later accused Ukrainian Defence Intelligence personnel of an assassination attempt in a letter published by Nice-Matin and sought an independent investigation. Kravchenko said Ukrainian prosecutors were among those handling that case and claimed knowledge of its circumstances.