Key Trends in Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Policy

In December 2025 and January 2026, Ukraine took a meaningful step toward strengthening its anti-corruption policy by combining legislative reform with more active enforcement. These developments reflect a broader effort to reinforce anti-corruption practices, clarify investigative powers, and raise compliance standards across both the public and private sectors.

Commenting on these trends, Anastasia Didenko, Counsel at LCF Law Group and Head of the Anti-Corruption and Compliance Practice, shares her insights in The Debrief for CEE Legal Matters. She notes that the recent period has been marked by a series of initiatives aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of Ukraine’s anti-corruption framework and closing long-standing regulatory and procedural gaps.

From a legislative perspective, a key milestone was the Verkhovna Rada’s adoption of the Law on Academic Integrity (No. 10392) on December 18, 2025. The law introduced a unified framework of principles, values, and liability for violations in the fields of education and research, signalling the state’s intention to extend integrity standards beyond traditional public service and into broader institutional environments. Alongside this, Draft Law No. 14269 was registered, proposing to expand the jurisdiction of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) to cover corruption offences committed by heads of bodies established by the President of Ukraine. The draft also seeks to address procedural gaps in the Criminal Procedure Code, which have previously complicated the investigation of certain high-level corruption cases.

These legislative initiatives have been accompanied by increasingly active judicial and enforcement practice. According to Didenko, one of the clearest enforcement signals is the continued use of asset recovery mechanisms through the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC). On January 9, 2026, the HACC partially upheld a claim filed by the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and ruled that certain assets belonging to the family of the former acting head of the Kharkiv Regional Recruitment and Social Support Centre were unjustified. The decision was based on monitoring findings of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), underscoring the growing role of this instrument in cases involving illicit enrichment.

Further developments followed shortly thereafter. On January 14, 2026, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, acting together with SAPO, conducted investigative measures and served a notice of suspicion under Article 369(4) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, concerning the offering of a bribe to a public official, on the head of one of the parliamentary factions. Two days later, on January 16, 2026, the High Anti-Corruption Court imposed a preventive measure in the form of bail in the amount of UAH 33,280,000.

Taken together, these legislative changes and enforcement actions send a clear signal of a shift in Ukraine’s anti-corruption policy toward a more systemic and integrated approach. By aligning lawmaking, institutional accountability, and active enforcement, Ukraine appears to be moving away from fragmented measures and toward a more coherent and effective anti-corruption framework.

Anastasiia Didenko, Counsel, Head of Anti-Corruption & Compliance, exclusively for CEE Legal Matters.