Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said on Tuesday he had resigned to take responsibility for a scandal in which dozens of officials are alleged to have abused their position to receive disability status and avoid military service, APA reports citing Reuters.
Kostin's resignation followed a meeting of the national security and defence council, where officials discussed how to crack down on corruption and on loopholes being used to get draft deferrals.
It was not immediately clear whether Kostin's resignation would have an impact on Ukraine's efforts to hold Russia accountable for its invasion and the subsequent war crimes of which Kyiv, its allies and the International Criminal Court accuse Moscow.
Kostin's office has recently been rocked by allegations that dozens of local officials, including prosecutors, allegedly misused their positions to obtain disability status.
"The Prosecutor General must take political responsibility for the situation in the prosecution bodies of Ukraine," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a strongly worded statement published on social media after the council meeting.
Kostin's resignation statement followed minutes later. The prosecutor called the situation around the false disability diagnoses "clearly amoral" and agreed with Zelenskyy about the need for personal responsibility.
"In this situation, I believe it is right to announce my resignation from the position of Prosecutor General."
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