Who is Anton Kovalskyi, the man now leading Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office?
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Experts describe Anton Kovalskyi as an “obvious choice,” noting that he has worked in the prosecutor’s office for 15 years (Photo: Khmelnytskyi Oblast Prosecutor's Office / Facebook)
Anton Kovalskyi, 42, the head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Prosecutor's Office, will serve as acting prosecutor general of Ukraine following Ruslan Kravchenko's dismissal from the post and until a new prosecutor general is appointed after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy assigned Kovalskyi to perform the duties of prosecutor general by decree on Sept. 17.
NV reviews what is known about Kovalskyi.
Who is Anton Kovalskyi
Anton Kovalskyi has worked in the prosecutor's office system for 15 years, since 2011, when he graduated from Ukraine's National Academy of Prosecutors with a degree in law.
A native of Vinnytsia, he began his career in the prosecutor's office in his hometown — first as a senior investigator, then as a senior prosecutor in the city, and later the regional prosecutor's office of Vinnytsia Oblast.
Through a series of career steps, including heading one of the departments within the Vinnytsia Oblast Prosecutor's Office, he rose to deputy head of that office (2020-2021).
Kovalskyi first changed regions in fall 2021, when he was appointed head of the Chernivtsi Oblast Prosecutor's Office. He worked in Chernivtsi for nearly four years, including through the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.
Finally, on July 1, 2025, Kovalskyi was entrusted with another region: he became head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Prosecutor's Office after a swift personnel overhaul there.
His appointment came in the wake of a high-profile scandal that broke in Khmelnytskyi Oblast in fall 2024. It emerged that roughly 50 prosecutors in the region had obtained disability status, and on Oct. 17, 2024, the then-head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Prosecutor's Office, Oleksiy Oliynyk, was dismissed. Oliynyk also held disability status and said he had obtained it back in 2017. The Prosecutor General's Office launched an internal investigation; after reviewing medical-assessment records, disability status was not confirmed for dozens of employees.
In the related illicit-enrichment case, the head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast medical and social expert commission (MSEC), Tetiana Krupa, and her son, Oleksandr, who held a leadership position at the regional Pension Fund office, were named as suspects. During searches of the Krupa family's property, investigators found nearly $6 million in cash, as well as branded jewelry and valuables. Law enforcement also determined that the officials' family owned 30 real estate properties in Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, and Kyiv, nine luxury vehicles, corporate rights worth 48 million hryvnias ($1.1 million), and a hotel-and-restaurant complex spanning nearly 3,000 square meters in a Khmelnytskyi park. Property abroad was found in Austria, Spain, and Turkiye, along with nearly $2.3 million in foreign currency accounts. None of these assets had been declared by the Krupa family in their annual disclosures.
Amid the scandal, then-Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin resigned in October 2024, and Ruslan Kravchenko was later appointed in his place. Kovalskyi may now replace Kravchenko himself.
Temporary or permanent? Could Kovalskyi become the next prosecutor general
Even before his appointment as acting prosecutor general, Kovalskyi's candidacy had been named among the leading contenders to succeed the dismissed Kravchenko, who has left Ukraine. Ukrainska Pravda reported this on Sept. 15, citing sources in political circles who named two contenders: either Kovalskyi or Valerii Prykhozhanov, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office.
BBC Ukraine political correspondent Sviatoslav Khomenko said the choice of Kovalskyi, even in the role of acting head of the Prosecutor General's Office, shows that Zelenskyy opted for "not a politically prominent, nationally recognized figure, though such names were floated among possible candidates, but someone from within the system."
"Kyiv likely took into account how Kovalskyi handled, first, the [2024] reputational crisis that hit the Khmelnytskyi prosecutor's office and, second, how he rebuilt the team's work, a significant portion of whose members turned out to be directly implicated in a fairly disgraceful situation," Khomenko said.
“It seems Kovalskyi will now have to scale that approach up in Kyiv, at the Prosecutor General's Office.”
At the same time, Kovalskyi could remain in the acting role for a long time, said Ihor Chalenko, a political analyst and head of the Center for Analysis and Strategies, speaking on Radio NV. He noted that Ukraine has long been debating the need to revise the mechanism and procedure for selecting prosecutor general candidates, which could affect the appointment of Kravchenko's permanent successor. "That is, unless there's an attempt to push someone through regardless, despite the entire campaign underway around the competition and this whole story," Chalenko added.
He also called Kovalskyi's candidacy an "understandable choice," describing him as someone who "climbed the career ladder within the prosecutor's office system starting in 2011."
Chalenko noted that after Kovalskyi was appointed head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Prosecutor's Office, "following all those stories in Khmelnytskyi Oblast involving MSEC and Tetiana Krupa," no major scandals arose around him personally.
"And it's clear that for the current authorities, that's already a positive — there's no serious [negative] baggage," Chalenko added. “But we'll have to see how well Anton Anatoliyovych can prove himself in this role. For now, I certainly wouldn't set expectations too high.”
He stressed that it remains worth watching which "group of influence" the new acting prosecutor general ultimately gravitates toward.
"The main thing right now is to normalize the work of the Prosecutor General's Office," Chalenko concluded. “Because, honestly, what has been happening is already such a serious blow to this particular institution that I think we'll be feeling the effects of this scandal for a long time — both in terms of the external track and beyond. It's good that an acting head has been designated.”
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