Ukrainian analysts have told Newsweek the move undoes a decade of democratic progress, although its president Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday he backed a new draft law aimed at strengthening the independence the anti-corruption institutions. Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian president's office and the Kremlin for comment.

The National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine has long been a battleground in Ukrainian politics, where graft is rife.

Thousands of people gathered in the streets of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday night to protest moves by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government to weaken anticorruption institutions, in the country’s first major antigovernment demonstration in three and a half years of war.