By Decree No. 946/2026, Volodymyr Zelensky entrusted the duties of Ukraine’s prosecutor general to the head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Prosecutor’s Office, Anton Kovalsky, and the decree itself was published on September 17. The document says the decision was made on the basis of the law on the legal regime of martial law.
Kovalsky has worked in the prosecutor’s office since 2011. As Suspilne writes, he started as a senior investigator, then worked in the prosecutor’s office of Vinnytsia Oblast and was deputy head of the regional prosecutor’s office.
In November 2021, he headed the Chernivtsi Regional Prosecutor’s Office, and from July 1, 2025, he led the prosecutor’s office of Khmelnytskyi Oblast. On September 15, Ukrainska Pravda named him one of the main candidates for the post of prosecutor general, while another candidate was the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office, Valerii Prykhozhanov.
The publication considered Kovalsky’s appointment more likely. This is specifically about acting duties: he has not yet been appointed permanent prosecutor general.
Kovalsky replaced Ruslan Kravchenko, whose resignation came amid a conflict between the Prosecutor General’s Office and anti-corruption bodies. In early September, NABU and SAP carried out an operation in a case involving a criminal organization that investigators believe was involved in “protection” of fraudulent call centers, and said that the group was led by one of the heads of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Amid this investigation, Kravchenko submitted his resignation on September 7. On the night of September 14, he left Ukraine in an official car, calling the trip a foreign business trip, and in the morning said that he had signed a notice of suspicion for NABU director Semen Kryvonos.
On the evening of September 14, the Prosecutor General’s Office denied that Kryvonos had been formally notified of suspicion in accordance with the law, and said there were no legal grounds for this, and that the entries in the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations had been canceled. On September 14, Zelensky suspended Kravchenko from office and asked the Verkhovna Rada to support his dismissal, and on September 15, after the parliament’s decision, he signed a decree formally dismissing Kravchenko from the post of prosecutor general.
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