On November 10, the HACC approved a plea agreement with Volodymyr Derhunov, a former prosecutor of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine. The court sentenced him to one year of actual imprisonment, 3 years’ disqualification from holding positions in law-enforcement bodies and public authorities, confiscation of his KIA Sportage and a residential house. 

In addition, the convicted former prosecutor undertook to donate UAH 400,000 to the “Code of the Nation 47” foundation, and his testimony will help the NABU expose another corruption scheme involving UAH 107 million in abuses by State Tax Service officials.

As reported earlier, the NABU caught the former senior prosecutor red-handed back in 2018, during the handover of USD 15,000 of a USD 20,000 bribe. In exchange, he was to sign a plea agreement with a suspected drug dealer that would (ironically) guarantee a suspended, rather than real, prison term.

What makes this decision significant is that it is the first publicly accessible HACC verdict in which a defendant receives actual imprisonment under a plea agreement, based on the new Article 69-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

This provision was introduced in November 2024 as part of a broader reform of plea agreements in corruption cases. Together with fines of up to UAH 204 million, confiscation mechanisms and other innovations, Article 69-2 allows an accused person to receive a sentence significantly below the statutory minimum, but requires them to serve it in reality.

In Derhunov’s case, he faced 8 to 12 years of imprisonment had he not entered a plea agreement with terms favorable to the NABU and the SAPO. The agreement brings to an end a long-running trial, which began in January 2019 at the Solomianskyi District Court of Kyiv and concluded with HACC’s verdict.