Nearly 60% of Ukrainians called the work of NABU and SAPO ineffective - social research

The level of Ukrainians’ disappointment in the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has reached 60% and is approaching the level of citizens’ distrust of pro-Russian politicians. This is stated in a Socis poll, reports UNN.

According to the study’s results, 59.4% of respondents consider the actions of NABU and SAPO ineffective, while only 5% of Ukrainians described the work of these agencies as highly effective. About 9% were unable to answer whether these anti-corruption agencies are effective at all. 

Experts explained the low level of trust in NABU and SAPO by the constant corruption and other criminal scandals surrounding the leadership and even rank-and-file employees of these agencies. 

According to lawyer Oleh Shram, although NABU is legally tasked with dealing with the largest-scale segment of corruption, the Bureau’s performance in the first half of 2026 was record-low. According to the lawyer, in criminal proceedings whose investigations were completed over six months, NABU recorded UAH 720 million in material losses—only 1% of the UAH 61 billion established by all investigative agencies. The amount recovered for the state in NABU proceedings was negligible—UAH 505,000, or only about 0.0008% of the total amount of losses established by all investigative agencies. 

During an audit of NABU, an international audit found that the Bureau had inflated staffing levels and failures in defense-related investigations. 

In addition, NABU was accused of complete ineffectiveness, colossal expenditures of budget funds, and leaking cases, while its employees were caught trafficking drugs. In particular, over the 10 years of the Bureau’s existence, the state spent more than UAH 10 billion on it. Meanwhile, the total amount recovered under court rulings in cases handled by NABU in 2015–2025 amounted to only about UAH 800 million. In other words, for every UAH 1 returned to the national budget, NABU spent 12.

The sociological survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews by the Socis sociological service from July 28 to August 2, 2026. The survey was not conducted in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, in Luhansk Oblast, in temporarily occupied territories, or in areas where active hostilities are taking place (a significant part of Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv oblasts); the study sample was close to representative at the national level in terms of age (over 18), gender, type of settlement (urban/rural), and the country’s division into regions. A total of 2,000 respondents were surveyed. The statistical margin of error of the sample: +/- 2.6%;