The former head of the state energy company Ukrenergo has been arrested on suspicion of corruption in Ukraine.

The former director of the public energy company Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, has been placed in pre-trial detention for three months by the Pechersky Court in Kyiv, accused of embezzling approximately 1.4 million euros from public funds in 2018, according to the prosecutor's office. Dismissed from his position last year, Kudrytskyi rejected the accusations, calling them "absurd and unfounded," according to the publication Ukrainska Pravda.

The chairwoman of the parliamentary anti-corruption committee, Anastasia Radina, suggested that the case could represent a form of political pressure on the former director. The case arises against the backdrop of tensions related to anti-corruption reform in Ukraine, after President Volodymyr Zelensky was forced, in August, to withdraw a law that would have placed anti-corruption institutions under government control, following protests and warnings from the European Union.