\n<\/p>\n
Ukrainian leader came under domestic and international pressure after signing law critics say curbs the powers of the country\u2019s anitcorruption agencies.<\/em><\/p>\n Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has submitted a new draft bill to the country\u2019s legislature, in an effort to calm outrage over a previously passed law that critics say paves the way for corruption.<\/p>\n The country\u2019s anticorruption agencies quickly hailed the bill\u2019s introduction on Thursday, saying it would restore their \u201cprocedural powers and guarantees of independence\u201d.<\/p>\n The Ukrainian leader has contended with protests and condemnation from both within Ukraine and from its closest European allies after a separate controversial law was passed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n That law placed the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor\u2019s Office (SAPO) under the direct authority of the country\u2019s prosecutor general \u2013 a position appointed by the president.<\/p>\n Zelenskyy initially maintained that the law was needed to respond to suspected \u201cRussian influence\u201d within the agencies amid Russia\u2019s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n Critics, however, said the law would strip the bodies of their independence and could allow political interference, while failing to address any potential Kremlin-linked operatives.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, thousands of Ukrainians defied martial law \u2013 which has been in place since the beginning of Russia\u2019s war \u2013 to take to the streets of Kyiv and other major cities to protest against the law.<\/p>\n European officials also questioned the law, noting that addressing corruption remains a core requirement both for Ukraine\u2019s future European Union membership and in assuring aid flows to combat Russia.<\/p>\n Amid the pressure, Zelenskyy backed away from the new law, promising to submit new legislation that would assure \u201call the norms for the independence of anti-corruption institutions will be in place\u201d and that there would be no Russian \u201cinfluence or interference\u201d.<\/p>\n Opposition lawmakers have also separately prepared their own legislation to revoke the law passed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThey heroically solved the problems that they created just as heroically. Grand imitators,\u201d Yaroslav Zhelezniak, from the opposition Holos party, said on Telegram, criticising Zelenskyy and his allies about-turn.<\/p>\n Before the new draft bill\u2019s introduction, Zelenskyy spoke with the leaders of Germany and the United Kingdom on Thursday.<\/p>\n In a statement, Zelenskyy\u2019s office said British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had \u201coffered to involve experts who could contribute to long-term cooperation\u201d on the issue.<\/p>\n In a post on X, Zelenskyy said he invited Friedrich Merz to \u201cjoin the expert review of the bill\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cFriedrich assured me of readiness to assist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It was not immediately clear when Ukraine\u2019s legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, would vote on the new bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ukrainian leader came under domestic and international pressure after signing law critics say curbs the powers of the country\u2019s anitcorruption agencies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has submitted a new draft bill to the country\u2019s legislature, in an effort to calm outrage over a previously passed law that critics say paves the way for corruption. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[5709,142,2066,150,124,494,4371,1770],"class_list":{"0":"post-12142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-anticorruption","9":"tag-bill","10":"tag-introduces","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-protests","14":"tag-ukraines","15":"tag-zelenskyy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}