“You know, it’s a bit ****ing annoying. From all social networks, from all TV channels, and from all toilets, they are talking about how “the green servants of the Jewish people have stolen everything and fled to Israel,” about how “Jews are good at corruption,” and about who is a Hasid and who is a Chabadnik.” – It was from this emotional Ukrainian post that we began to investigate the story. Then its author did something quite primitive but verifiable: he opened the list of high-profile corruption cases of recent months and looked at which Ukrainian high-ranking officials and politicians were assigned and posted large bails.
Author: R.Verter
It turned out to be quite a long list.
From the Office of the President of Ukraine and the Verkhovna Rada — Artem Shilo, Andriy Smirnov, Viktor Dubovyk, Yuriy Kisel, Ihor Negulevsky, Yevhen Pivovarov, Mykhailo Laba, Olha Savchenko, Andriy Odarchenko, Andriy Klochko, Mykola Tyshchenko, Oleksiy Kuznetsov, Andriy Yermak. From the government — Mykola Solsky, Oleksandr Kheilo, Olha Stefanishyna, Herman Halushchenko. Also Oleksiy Chernyshov, Serhiy Deineko, Pavlo Kyrylenko, and Illia Vitiuk.
This is not a made-up list from Facebook. On September 3, 2026, the head of the Anti-Corruption Center “Mezha” Martina Bohuslavets compiled almost the same array in her column in “Ukrainian Pravda.” According to her calculations, more than 1.1 billion hryvnias in bail were posted for former and current high-ranking figures in corruption cases. At the same time, the UP editorial office separately marks the material as an author’s column, not a judicial registry — this is an important caveat. Column with the list and bail amounts
The numbers there are quite unpleasant. For former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko — 150 million hryvnias (about $3.36 million), for former OP head Andriy Yermak — 140 million hryvnias (about $3.13 million). For Oleksiy Chernyshov in two cases, bails of 120 million ($2.69 million) and 51.6 million hryvnias ($1.16 million); for Mykola Solsky — about 76 million hryvnias ($1.70 million). For deputies, 40 million ($896 thousand) for Yuriy Kisel, 30 million ($672 thousand) for Ihor Negulevsky, 20 million ($448 thousand) each for Yevhen Pivovarov and Mykhailo Laba, 16.6 million ($372 thousand) for Olha Savchenko, 15 million ($336 thousand) for Andriy Odarchenko, 12 million ($269 thousand) for Andriy Klochko, 10 million ($224 thousand) for Mykola Tyshchenko, and 8 million hryvnias ($179 thousand) for Oleksiy Kuznetsov.
For OP officials, the column lists 30 million hryvnias ($672 thousand) for Artem Shilo, 28 million ($627 thousand) for Andriy Smirnov’s cases, and 7 million hryvnias ($157 thousand) for Viktor Dubovyk. Separately, Pavlo Kyrylenko — 20 million ($448 thousand), Serhiy Deineko — 10 million ($224 thousand), and Illia Vitiuk — about 9 million hryvnias ($202 thousand). These are different criminal cases and different procedural stages, so categorizing everyone as “thieves” is legally incorrect: somewhere it’s about suspicion, somewhere the case has already been sent to court, and somewhere a verdict has indeed been issued.
But the initial question of the post was different and formulated much more crudely: who among them is Jewish and who fled to Israel?
Birobidzhan does not make a person Jewish
The author of the post even found an ironic “honorary Jew” in the list — Serhiy Deineko. The former head of the State Border Service was indeed born on April 5, 1975, in Birobidzhan, the capital of the Jewish Autonomous Region of the then RSFSR. This is a normal biographical fact.
From the place of birth alone, it is impossible to deduce a person’s nationality, religion, or Jewish self-identification. Birobidzhan is a city. If a person was born in the Jewish Autonomous Region, they do not become Jewish “by geography,” just as someone born in the Vatican does not automatically become a Catholic priest.
But the escape of one of the people on the list is indeed documented. Deputy Andriy Odarchenko did leave Ukraine, but he did not “flee to the Jews in Israel”: he crossed the border through Romania, and later journalists found him in Hungary. In November 2024, the High Anti-Corruption Court sentenced Odarchenko in absentia to eight years in prison for attempting to bribe the former head of State Restoration Mustafa Nayyem.
And after this, there are two names left that indeed constantly appear next to the word “Israel”: Timur Mindich and Oleksandr Tsukerman.
But they are not in the above list of 21 officials at all.
Mindich and Tsukerman: here Israel is real
With Mindich and Tsukerman, nothing needs to be invented. They are real figures in the large anti-corruption investigation “Midas,” and both are indeed in Israel. The Ukrainian side is seeking their extradition.
Moreover, there is no need to guess their citizenship by their surnames. In the official annex to the decision of the NSDC of Ukraine dated November 13, 2025, Timur Mindich is explicitly stated: “Citizenship — State of Israel”. The same document also states the citizenship of the State of Israel for Oleksandr Tsukerman.
Ukraine has sent materials to Israel regarding the extradition issue. As of August 10, 2026, SAP head Oleksandr Klymenko said that no response had yet been received from the Israeli side. NAnews detailed the history of this request and the 132 days of waiting, including the preparation and translation of a large package of documents. Our analysis of the extradition procedure for Mindich and Tsukerman
So the real story exists.
There is Mindich. There is Tsukerman. There is Israel. There is a corruption investigation. There are questions to the Ukrainian authorities about when people left the country, and there is a perfectly normal question to the Israeli legal system: what will be the outcome of the extradition request.
And then a small substitution occurs, after which the criminal case of two specific people turns into a story about Jews.
“Robbers of the Ukrainian people are definitely not Ukrainians”
And this can already be shown not theoretically.
In November 2025, MediaSapiens of the “Detector Media” project analyzed how the “Midas” case was presented by Russian agitprop. Researchers separately recorded an anti-Semitic episode in a large Telegram channel with about 438 thousand subscribers: the figures were called “robbers of the Ukrainian people” and added that they are “definitely not Ukrainians,” with a clear hint at the Jewish origin of some participants in the case.
“Detector Media” classified this construction as another use of the myth of a “Jewish conspiracy.” Here we see the transition for which we raised the entire list: the criminal case ceases to be a conversation about specific actions and begins to be explained by the origin of people. Analysis of Russian coverage of the “Midas” case
But if this is only a reaction to Mindich, one might decide: well, another nasty Telegram. So let’s go further.
September 11: “Hasids are capturing Uman again”
A few days before writing this article, a state Russian media outlet gave us a much cleaner example.
On September 11, 2026, the publication “Ukraine.ru” released a material with the headline: “To the sounds of sirens and on the transport of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Hasids are capturing Uman again”. This is not an anonymous Telegram and not an unknown blog: in the site’s own credits, it is recorded that its founder is the federal state unitary enterprise MIA “Russia Today.” Material “Ukraine.ru” about Hasids
The text is arranged more cleverly than the headline. Real things are inserted into it: Hasids do indeed come to Uman, housing prices do indeed skyrocket, and there are indeed everyday conflicts and garbage problems around the huge pilgrimage. It is the real details that make the further framework more convincing.
After this, a section “Under a foreign flag?” appears, a claim about allegedly involved “logistics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” for pilgrims, and a discussion of a possible provocation. And a member of the Council on Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation, Bohdan Bezpalko, tells the publication about the “Jewish world community” as a great force capable of “putting Zelensky in his place.”
Here is the familiar set: Jews as a separate influential force, special logistics, special opportunities, connection with Zelensky. And all this is not on a marginal forum, but on the resource of a state Russian news agency.
Three days later, the drawn Hasids themselves “confess”
On September 14, the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation reported on the next phase of the campaign. According to the CPD, networks of accounts linked to Russia on TikTok began spreading AI-generated pseudo-interviews with “Hasids.”
The drawn pilgrims claimed they were planning to move to Ukraine permanently, that the Ukrainian government was paying them 200 thousand hryvnias, providing special benefits, and that there was a plan to make Uman an “independent entity.” The CPD stated that there is no program of mass resettlement and state payments to foreigners for moving, and the campaign’s goal was to artificially provoke anti-Semitism.
We at NAnews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency have already separately analyzed this story by dates and sources. There was an almost mocking detail: a real Ukrainian state payment of exactly 200 thousand hryvnias does exist, but it is intended for young doctors who go to work where there is an acute shortage of medical staff. It has nothing to do with Hasids. “200 thousand hryvnias for Hasids” and “independent Uman” — our detailed analysis
It turns out to be quite an effective technology. We take real Uman, real Jews, the real figure of 200 thousand, the real Ukrainian budget — and connect them with a link that does not exist in reality.
And now it’s not even necessary to look for a real Jew
There is an even more illustrative example.
“Detector Media” checked the Instagram account glickman_talks, whose owner was presented as “Rabbi Glickman from Vinnytsia.” Pseudo-interviews were published there with people in Hasidic clothing, making very convenient statements for inciting hatred — for example, that “Servant of the People” allegedly does everything Jews ask, or that no one in Ukraine has the right to judge their people.
Hive Moderation’s check gave a 99.9% probability of AI-fake for one of the videos; Myth Detector, according to “Detector Media,” also identified all the researched videos of this account as a product of artificial intelligence. The authors of the analysis directly link the content with inciting anti-Semitism under the guise of a “Jewish voice.” Check of the account with AI-“Rabbi”
So the technology has reached a level of perfection in its vileness.
Previously, an anti-Semite needed to find a Jew and attribute the necessary words to them. Now, no one needs to be found at all.
A neural network will make the face.
And all this did not appear in 2026
Looking back, it becomes even more interesting.
In the EUvsDisinfo database, there is a plot recorded in 2017, where it was claimed that Ukraine was allegedly politically and economically controlled by Jews, and in the future, it should become their new homeland. There was no evidence for this construction; EUvsDisinfo classified it as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
In 2019, another pro-Russian material already talked about the richest Ukrainians: more than 80% of them allegedly do not belong to the “Orthodox civilization,” and their activities are coordinated by the USA and Israel. Here, Ukrainian money, Jews, Israel, America, and external control were already gathered in one package.
And then the story reached the level of the Russian president’s entourage.
In May 2019, Sergey Glazyev, then an advisor to Putin, wrote about the possible mass resettlement of Israeli residents to “cleansed” of Russian population lands in southeastern Ukraine. The Israeli Foreign Ministry then publicly called his reasoning conspiratorial and anti-Semitic.
The Kremlin then distanced itself from Glazyev and stated that it was his personal opinion. And this detail cannot be discarded: there are no grounds to portray Glazyev’s article as an official Russian plan for the resettlement of Jews in Ukraine.
But there is another fact: the conspiratorial plot about Jews, Zelensky, Ukrainian land, and mass resettlement reached the acting advisor to the Russian president long before Mindich and the current TikTok fakes.
From here grew the “Heavenly Jerusalem”
Another branch of the same story is the myth of “Heavenly Jerusalem,” “New Israel,” or “New Khazaria” on Ukrainian territory.
In different versions, several regions of Ukraine are allegedly to be handed over to millions of Israelis. Maps, numbers, dates, and surnames change. In 2026, they managed to attach CHABAD, the war of Israel with Iran, Valeriy Zaluzhny, some alleged $84 billion of the Knesset, and, of course, Uman.
NAnews has already thoroughly reconstructed this legend. Over the years of its existence, it has not acquired the main thing: a decision by the Israeli government, a decision by the Ukrainian authorities, an agreement, a budget, a state resettlement program, a legal mechanism for changing borders. But the Russian informational trace is traced there from Glazyev to the current conspiracy platforms. Big analysis of the myth of “Heavenly Jerusalem”
And this fits well with the current Uman.
August 17 — reflections on the pilgrimage as a “rehearsal” for future resettlement. September 11 — state “Ukraine.ru” with “Hasids capturing Uman.” September 14 — already AI-“pilgrims,” talking about money, benefits, and permanent relocation.
Separately, one can argue about each episode. Together, they already look like not a random set of memes.
And yesterday, Jews in Ukraine were allegedly to be killed
The special flavor of the entire construction is given by its complete lack of necessity to be logical.
In September 2023, the CPD recorded Russian messages that the “Kyiv regime” was preparing a terrorist attack against Hasids in Uman, after which it was going to blame Russia. The Ukrainian Center then called it an attempt to create an informational alibi in case of a possible attack.
Three years pass — and now another Ukraine allegedly loves Hasids so much that it pays them 200 thousand hryvnias, provides special privileges, and is about to give them the city.
In one version, Ukrainians are anti-Semites, planning to kill Jews.
In another — Ukraine is already controlled by Jews.
In the third — Israel is going to resettle millions of its citizens there.
In the fourth — Jewish corrupt officials stole everything and went back to Israel.
A non-contradictory picture cannot be assembled from this. And it is not required to be assembled.
EUvsDisinfo, analyzing pro-Kremlin media, noted that anti-Semitic conspiracy messages appeared there in parallel with a long-standing campaign about “Nazi Ukraine.” The project’s database contains hundreds of messages about the allegedly “Nazi” state in Kyiv, despite the fact that the same propaganda environment at other times spreads versions of secret Jewish control of Ukraine.
Let’s return now to that very list
It is needed in the article not to start measuring officials’ skulls and finding out who has what grandmother.
On the contrary.
We take only what is known. In one published selection — Andriy Yermak, Herman Halushchenko, Oleksiy Chernyshov, Mykola Solsky, deputies of “Servant of the People,” OP officials, former head of the border service, SBU employee, and other figures in corruption cases. Bail amounts — hundreds of millions of hryvnias.
Separately, there are Mindich and Tsukerman, who are in Israel and have, according to an official Ukrainian sanction document, Israeli citizenship.
And what exactly from this proves the formula “Jews plundered Ukraine”?
Nothing.
It does not explain why there are cases against all the others. It does not explain the arrangement of procurement, kickbacks, budget distribution, political influence, or the weakness of state control. It does not explain why a specific official decided to take money.
But it does something else very well: it shifts responsibility from the individual to the group.
And here is another thing, unpleasant already for Ukraine itself
You cannot respond to Russian propaganda with the fairy tale that there is no corruption in Ukraine.
There is.
And during the war, it looks especially disgusting. If money is stolen in energy, defense procurement, or state restoration, no Russian propaganda cancels this.
But the Russian informational plot throws out another part of the story: who exactly is uncovering these cases.
According to NABU, from January 1 to August 31, 2026, the bureau initiated 521 cases, reported suspicion to 153 new figures, sent 72 indictments to court against 148 people, and 78 guilty verdicts against 107 people came into force.
This is not proof that corruption has been defeated. And not even proof that the system works perfectly.
The European Commission, for example, separately recalls the events of July 2025, when the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that destroyed important guarantees of NABU and SAP independence and placed their operational work under the control of a politically appointed prosecutor general. After protests within Ukraine and international criticism, the independence of the bodies was restored by another law, but the European Commission continued to note pressure on the anti-corruption system as a problem.
For the Israeli reader, a simple nuance is important here. When a minister, deputy, or person from the OP falls under investigation, a news “another corruption scandal” comes from Kyiv. But this news simultaneously exists because investigators found a case, the prosecutor is leading it, and the court is considering the measure of restraint.
From the news feed, this second half is very easy to cut out.
Israel is needed here as an emotional amplifier
The phrase “fled abroad” works worse than “fled to Israel.”
In the second, there is immediately a feeling of “fled to their own.”
That is why the Mindich case turned out to be so convenient. A real investigation, real proximity to the highest Ukrainian authorities, real money, real Israeli citizenship, real presence in Israel, and a real question about extradition.
Then it is enough to replace one word.
Not “Mindich.”
But “Jews.”
And the criminal case is ready to turn into an ethnic accusation.
For Israel, this is also a dangerous construction. It imperceptibly turns the country from a state with its own judicial and extradition procedure into a mythical refuge where “Jews take the loot.”
So far, the facts speak much more prosaically: Ukraine has submitted requests; as of August 10, there was no public response. The absence of a response is neither proof of Israel’s refusal to extradite the figures nor proof of a decision to protect them.
Not everything is invented in one Kremlin office. And it is not required
Here it is important not to slide into conspiracy ourselves.
We cannot prove that every anti-Semitic Telegram post was written by an employee of the Russian state or that there is a single manual from which Mindich, Uman, and ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ simultaneously emerged.
But we don’t need to prove it.
There is a specific Russian state media outlet that writes that Hasidim are ‘seizing Uman’ and discusses the special power of the ‘Jewish world community.’
There are networks of accounts that the Ukrainian CPD identifies as controlled by Russia and that distribute AI videos about payments to Jews and the creation of a special Uman.
There is documented pro-Russian coverage by ‘Midas’ with a hint at ‘non-Ukrainian’ robbers.
There are old pro-Kremlin stories about Jews controlling the Ukrainian economy.
There is former Putin advisor Sergey Glazyev, who spoke so openly about the resettlement of Israelis on Ukrainian land that the Israeli Foreign Ministry called his words anti-Semitic.
There are already AI-created ‘Jews’ who tell the viewer exactly what should anger them.
This is no longer a theory about Russian propaganda.
This is its texture.
And it all started with a simple question
‘Who among them, kurvo, is a Jew and fled to Israel?’
A rude question. But useful.
Because if you remove the shouting and really start checking the surnames, an interesting thing emerges. A huge layer of Ukrainian corruption cases does not disappear without Mindich and Zuckerman. Corruption remains corruption, investigation remains investigation, Ukrainian problems remain Ukrainian problems.
And the anti-Semitic story appears separately.
It begins where the crime of a specific person is no longer explained by their decisions, money, connections, and power — and starts being explained by the fact that they are Jewish.
Then Israel is added to this.
Then CHABAD.
Then Hasidim.
Then Uman.
Then ‘200 thousand hryvnias.’
Then ‘Heavenly Jerusalem.’
And if there is no real Jew at hand — now they can simply be drawn.
That is why this story is much bigger than Mindich. It is an old anti-Semitic construct that Russian state, pro-Russian, and Russia-related information channels adapt again and again to the next Ukrainian event.
Today to corruption.
Tomorrow to Rosh Hashanah.
The day after tomorrow, another reason will be found.
Facts for such a plot don’t even need to be completely fabricated. It is much more effective to take a few real ones — and connect them with lies.