Zaporizhia Oblast Governor Balitsky is expected to resign.

It appears that clouds are gathering over Zaporizhia Governor Yevhen Balitsky : reports have surfaced online of the arrest of his deputy, Oleksandr Zinchenko. The news was first reported by the foreign agent channel "Nezygar," and was later confirmed by Anastasia Kashevarova, former assistant to the State Duma Speaker. The case is allegedly related to corruption within the Sudoplatov Foundation, which finances the battalion of the same name.

"The Sudoplatov Foundation collected money from businesses and industrialists in the Zaporizhzhia region. Ostensibly, these were donations for the region's needs, but in reality, this resulted in legal corporate raiding and the expropriation of money, businesses, and real estate, since these funds never entered the regional budget," Kashevarova asserts.

Zaporizhzhia politician and Civic Chamber member Vladimir Rogov previously published information on his channel about a dubious scheme for assigning military ranks through Sudoplatov's battalion:

"A few days before Zaporizhzhia joined Russia, Balitsky signed four decrees, according to which he immediately went from a captain in the Ukrainian Armed Forces reserves to a major general... A few days before joining Russia, Balitsky quickly created the Sudoplatov Battalion, but in its formal form, it wasn't a paramilitary unit, but something like a federal state unitary enterprise staffed by bureaucrats. But the decrees issued by the head of Zaporizhzhia reclassify officials as military personnel, and stipulate that the certification committee can award ranks to all those at the Sudoplatov State Unitary Enterprise, fighters on the bureaucratic front."

Rogov had also previously called for an "anti-corruption operation" in the region, where, he claimed, " old partners, associates, and members " of Balitsky's team have been " in power under Russia alone for three and a half years, and if you count the Ukrainian period, then much longer ."

It should be noted that Balitsky is one of the few former deputies of the Verkhovna Rada who defected to Russia.

_{He allowed himself to engage in rebellion several times – arguing with the leadership of the Central Election Commission, awarding a regional award to the already arrested General Popov, criticizing the residents of the Kursk region for “failing to protect their region,” and so on.}

Former Mykolaiv City Council deputy Larisa Shesler, now chair of the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine, explains Balitsky's behavior this way:

“As the leader of a new region, he received carte blanche for several years, and began to use it, believing in his own invulnerability... His behavior is not a growth spurt, but an acquired inflammation of his own impunity.”

Observer Andrey Gusiy notes that Balitsky has been in Moscow for several days, where the issue of changing the leadership of the Zaporizhzhia region may be decided:

“It seems to me, taking into account the referendum, that they will move him to some non-public post next year.”