BBC Ukraine on the parliamentary crisis: «Nehulevskyi is walking around the chamber wearing a bracelet, talking about interrogations and stirring things up»

In December 2025, Mykolaiv MP Ihor Nehulevskyi was placed under investigation in a NABU case concerning a criminal group within the Verkhovna Rada. Photo from open sources

BBC News Ukraine published an article on the political crisis in the Verkhovna Rada and the failed votes. One section of the report mentions Mykolaiv deputy Ihor Nehulevskyi, who is suspected of corruption.

Journalists cite a number of factors as the cause of the crisis in parliament.

One of the key incidents was the Rada’s vote in July 2025, when MPs decided to strip the NABU and SAPO of their independence and grant the Prosecutor General powers not seen since the Yanukovych era. According to the BBC, this opened a veritable «Pandora’s box».

This was followed by the publication of the «Mindich films» and, ultimately, the case concerning possible payments to MPs in envelopes.

«Against the backdrop of suspicions in the case of possible payments to MPs in envelopes, some members of the «monoblock majority» began to worry about their own future, which also affected the figures on the scoreboard,» writes the BBC.

Those MPs who have already been served with notices of suspicion by law enforcement and are attending interrogations are openly stating that they are taking a break for the time being and will refrain from voting. Meanwhile, some MPs not under suspicion are simply frightened by what they see happening around them.

The journalists then mention one of the figures implicated in the case regarding possible involvement in a criminal group, MP Ihor Nehulevskyi from the Mykolaiv region. During sessions in the Rada, he walks around the chamber and tells his colleagues how unfairly he has been treated.

«Nehulevskyi walks around the chamber wearing an electronic ankle bracelet: he shows it to everyone, stirs things up, talks about his interrogations and how it’s ‘unfair and disgraceful’,» one of the influential MPs tells BBC News Ukraine.

The case concerning vote rigging in the Verkhovna Rada

In December 2025, NABU and the SAP announced the exposure of an organised criminal group operating within the Verkhovna Rada. MP Ihor Nehulevskyi is one of five MPs suspected in the case involving bribes for «necessary» votes in the Verkhovna Rada.

According to the investigation, the criminal group was formed as early as 2021. Instructions were sent to MPs via a dedicated WhatsApp chat, specifying the numbers of draft laws for which they were required to cast «appropriate» votes in exchange for money.

The amount of the «reward», according to detectives, could range from 2,000 to 20,000 dollars. Between November and December 2025, one of the group’s members allegedly received at least 145,000 dollars for subsequent distribution among the other participants.

On 29 December, five suspected MPs from the «Servant of the People» party were notified of charges under Part 3 of Article 28 and Part 4 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. According to RBC-Ukraine from the publication RBC-Ukraine, the suspects are Yevhen Pyvovarov, Ihor Nehulevskyi, Olha Savchenko, Yurii Kysel and Mykhailo Laba.

The High Anti-Corruption Court imposed a preventive measure on him — bail of 30 million hryvnias, of which the MP himself paid 2.9 million hryvnias.

It later emerged that Ihor Nehulevskyi, who is suspected of corruption, received 400,422 hryvnias in compensation from the state budget for unused holiday leave.