Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) said they have uncovered an extensive scheme in which military drones and signal-jamming systems were bought for the defence ministry at grossly inflated prices. Investigators allege a sitting lawmaker, two local officials and several National Guard personnel arranged contracts with preferred suppliers and then pocketed kickbacks worth as much as 30% of each deal. Four suspects have been taken into custody, the agencies said. The probe was announced just two days after parliament voted to restore the agencies’ full independence, reversing an earlier bid to place them under the prosecutor-general that had triggered the largest nationwide protests since Russia’s 2022 invasion. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who championed the reversal, reiterated that there must be “zero tolerance for corruption” and pledged swift prosecutions. Ukraine’s European partners, which have linked continued financial and military assistance—and Kyiv’s EU membership aspirations—to demonstrable anti-graft progress, welcomed the reinstatement of NABU and SAPO’s powers. The latest case is likely to be closely watched in Brussels as a test of the country’s renewed commitment to rooting out wartime corruption.