Cardboard signs bearing pointed, sometimes humorous slogans, Ukrainian flags, and hundreds of young people holding them aloft. These demonstrations have been regularly held since July 22, the day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law that stripped two government agencies tasked with investigating high-level corruption cases of their independent statuses.

On Wednesday, July 30, about 1,000 demonstrators – fewer than the week before – gathered outside Kyiv's Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater, shouting and singing to keep up pressure on the government. Many young people that evening also called out the country's lawmakers, who are expected to vote on legislation considered crucial for Ukraine's future on Thursday, July 31. The bill aims to overturn the measures against the anti-corruption agencies that were passed just eight days earlier.

Zelensky, faced with the severity of the political crisis the law provoked, had no choice but to backtrack on July 24. The new bill therefore seeks to restore the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), after both agencies were placed under the authority of Ukraine's prosecutor general, a close ally of the president, on July 22. According to Ukraine's anti-corruption organizations, this restructuring was a way for the presidency to control the agencies' work, access their files and influence their investigations.

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