The liquidation of Gorbatuk’s department comes days after Gorbatuk and one of his subordinates, Andriy Radionov, said that Stryzhevska and another deputy prosecutor general, Eugene Enin, had no right to negotiate with fugitive ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky. They said that Enin and Stryzhevska had no procedural status in the Stavytsky case, which was overseen by Radionov.

Enin and Stryzhevska met with Stavytsky in 2016 in a hotel in Tel Aviv in Israel to negotiate the charges against him, according to an audio recording of the meeting leaked to Slidstvo.Info and published on June 9. The recording implies that the investigators could have conspired with the ex-minister, who has been wanted for embezzlement since 2014, in a backroom deal to soften the charges against him.