MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has confirmed reports that former Energy and Justice Minister German German Galushchenko, whose name is mentioned in the notorious Minich case, was detained while trying to leave the country.

"Today, as part of the Midas case NABU detectives detained the former energy minister who was trying to cross the state border," it said on its Telegram channel.

Earlier, the Ukrainskaya Pravda media outlet reported, citing its sources, that Galushchenko had been detained while trying to cross the border. He was taken off the train on the night of February 15. Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak explained on his Telegram channel that Galushchenko has the right to leave the country amid the mobilization campaign on the grounds that he has three minor children, even though they live in Switzerland, so the former minister's detention is directly related to the criminal case.

Later, Verkhovna Rada member Alexey Goncharenko (designated as a terrorist and extremist in Russia) wrote on his Telegram channel, that Golushchenko, who has been in a status of a witness until today, has been faced with chages.

Galushchenko was Ukraine’s energy minister from 2021 to 2025. After that, he served as justice minister for several months but was dismissed amid the corruption scandal.

On November 10, 2025 the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), both independent from Zelensky’s office, announced an investigation into a major corruption scheme in the energy sector, dubbed Operation Midas. Searches were conducted at the Energoatom energy company and the residences of entrepreneur Timur Mindich and the now suspended Justice Minister German Galushchenko, who served as the country’s energy minister at the time of the events that are being looked into. The investigation found that participants in the scheme had laundered around $100 million. NABU also started to release recordings of conversations from Mindich’s apartment, which revealed discussions of corrupt practices.

On November 11, along with Mindich, charges in the case were brought against former Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of National Unity Alexey Chernyshov, who is also seen as a member of Zelensky’s inner circle. However, Mindich, who some have called Zelensky’s "wallet," left the country a few hours before searches started, and is now in Israel. On November 17, reports indicated that Andrey Yermak might appear in the Mindich case files under the pseudonym Ali Baba. Yermak’s office and apartment were searched in the morning on November 28 and Zelensky dismissed him by the evening.