LONDON, November 22. /TASS/. Records from Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) in the case against businessman Timur Mindich could cause the collapse of the Kiev regime, The Spectator’s journalist Owen Matthews stated.

"Defeat, political implosion and civil war - those are the jeopardies that Vladimir Zelensky faces as Ukraine heads into the most difficult and probably the last winter of the war," he wrote.

According to Matthews, the situation for Zelensky's government, which has found itself at the center of a corruption scandal, is worsening the situation on the front lines: Russian troops continue to advance in Donbass and Novorossiya, the number of desertions among Ukrainian servicemen has quadrupled since last year, and the EU is unable to fully support Kiev after US financial restrictions on aid to Ukraine.

Matthews believes that Zelensky's position is threatened by Ukrainian nationalists from the Right Sector and Azov who have begun actively calling for the punishment of corrupt officials since the Mindich case was made public. "That sounds scarily like justification for a military coup," the columnist pointed out.

Mindich case

On November 10, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced a large-scale operation dubbed Midas to uncover a major corruption scheme in the energy sector. Searches were conducted at the home of Timur Mindich, who is often referred to as Zelensky’s "wallet," as well as at the residence of Justice Minister German Galuschenko, who had previously served as Minister of Energy, and at the Energoatom company. The NABU then began publishing excerpts from conversations in Mindich’s apartment, during which corruption schemes were discussed.

On November 11, NABU filed the first charges, including Mindich as the head of a criminal organization, as well as former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-Minister of National Unity Alexey Chernyshov, who remains chummy with Zelensky. On the same day, the government prematurely terminated the powers of the supervisory board of Energoatom, and on November 12, the Verkhovna Rada received resignation letters from Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk. Mindich, who is called Zelensky’s friend and "wallet," left Ukraine a few hours before the searches to Israel.