Ukraine's parliament registered a bill on minority-language schooling on 1 October to lift Hungary's block on the country's European Union membership talks, Ukrinform reported. Kyiv acts first with the legislation. Budapest reciprocates by letting the EU push the stalled accession process forward. Hungary's government welcomed the text within a day.

Ukraine's route into the European Union turns on unanimous votes, so one member state's leverage can stall the entire queue—and Kyiv is trying to pry the clusters open one bargain at a time before the window for this year's progress closes.

A tightly timed swap

European Pravda, citing unnamed sources, reported that the two capitals agreed to move in parallel after a public standoff, with neither side willing to go first on trust alone. Ukraine registers and passes the bill. In return, Hungary is to let the Council of the EU presidency send Kyiv, on 6 October, the requests needed to open two negotiating clusters—stages of the membership process. The Rada plans an extraordinary session on 12 October to adopt it, and European Pravda says the votes are there. A Council of the EU decision is due on 13 October, ahead of a European Council summit two days later. Deputy Prime Minister Vsevolod Chentsov said rebuilding trust will take concrete steps from both governments.

What the bill changes

Lawmakers filed Bill No. 16119, which creates a national minority school status: a school qualifies when over half its pupils—50% plus one—study in a national-minority language that is also an official EU language. By Education Ministry estimates, that fits about 149 schools, roughly 1.2% of Ukraine's general secondary institutions. Ukrainian stays the language of instruction, and the bill does not return Russian to classrooms.

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Pupils at qualifying schools could use the minority language with teachers and classmates, not only in lessons, and parents could petition to add subjects taught in Ukrainian. The text also covers Ukraine's indigenous peoples, such as Crimean Tatars, and drops a Ukrainian-language certificate requirement for the heads of 29 private schools for as long as they stay in their posts. Education committee head Serhii Babak said the solution protects Ukrainian while meeting an EU accession commitment.

What changed in Budapest

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar posted on Facebook that the bill strengthens legal guarantees for Hungarian-language education and the school network, and wrote that he expects those rights honored in practice. European Pravda framed the outcome as a win Magyar's own voters can read as delivering what the previous government never secured. Foreign Minister Anita Orbán said the new government had achieved more in a few months for the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia than Viktor Orbán's cabinet managed in ten years. Under Magyar, Hungary agreed in June to open the first accession cluster but kept slowing the rest. Only in recent weeks, European Pravda wrote, did Budapest abandon Orbán-style unconditional blocking. This bill is meant to free the next two.

Ukrainian President Zelensky must consider a petition to decriminalize pornography after it reached the required 25,000 signatures, according to data on the official Ukrainian government petitions website.

Pornography production and distribution are illegal in Ukraine, with broad interpretations meaning even sharing nude photos can result in jail time.

Despite being illegal, models on subscription-based site OnlyFans, known for being an adult content platform, must declare their income and pay taxes, as required for all paid content creators.

The decriminalization petition was created by Ukrainian OnlyFans model Svetlana Dvornikova, who argued that "law enforcement should focus on real crimes instead of conducting operations to buy intimate photos."

"Over five years, I've paid more than Hr 40 million ($958,062) in taxes to the state," Dvornikova wrote in the petition.

"But instead of gratitude for this money, the state opened a criminal case against me."

In January 2025, Ukraine's OnlyFans content creators declared more than $7 million in income, paying $1.5 million in personal income and military taxes, though it's unclear what specific content these users create on the platform.

Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak, who has initiated bills to legalize pornography, calculated that from 2020 to 2022, 5,000 Ukrainians earned $123 million on OnlyFans.

"Porn today is mostly online platforms, and those who earn on these platforms officially pay taxes. That's millions of dollars going to the armed forces," Zhelezniak said on his YouTube channel.

The latest bill to legalize pornography was registered in November 2024 and supported by parliament's law enforcement committee in December, but hasn't been brought to a vote yet.

The bill proposes decriminalizing only the creation and storage of pornographic content by consenting adults.

Criminal liability would still apply for revenge porn, deepfake porn, extreme porn, child pornography, and distribution to minors.

"We're simply changing Article 301 of the Criminal Code so that adults who film and distribute intimate videos aren't thrown in prison for 3-5 years," Zhelezniak wrote on his Telegram channel.

"Currently, under Article 301, you can be punished even for storing nude photos on your personal phone."

In July 2022, a similar petition to legalize pornography reached the required number of signatures. It didn't lead to changes, and Zelensky responded by citing existing laws about "protecting public morality."

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The Kyiv IndependentDominic Culverwell

Ukraine's parliament on June 17 approved President Volodymyr Zelensky's nomination of 35-year-old Ruslan Kravchenko as the country's new prosecutor general, making him the youngest person to ever hold the post.

Kravchenko, a former military prosecutor and most recently head of Ukraine's tax service, replaces Andrii Kostin, who stepped down in October 2024 following a scandal involving fraudulent disability claims by dozens of prosecutors in Khmelnytskyi Oblast.

Lawmakers supported Kravchenko's appointment with 273 votes in favor, according to Yaroslav Zheleznyak, an MP from the Holos party.

A native of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, Kravchenko served as a military prosecutor in Crimea before leaving the peninsula after Russia's annexation in 2014. He was one of the prosecutors in the case of fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych.

Kravchenko will now lead the Prosecutor General's Office amid war, reforms, and heightened scrutiny of law enforcement bodies' work. His predecessor, Kostin, resigned after the media revealed that at least 50 prosecutors had allegedly received disability status fraudulently — a scandal that sparked widespread criticism.

The Prosecutor General's Office has played a central role in documenting Russian war crimes and enforcing anti-corruption efforts, especially since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

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The Kyiv IndependentOlena Goncharova

President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed to the Verkhovna Rada the appointment of Ruslan Kravchenko as Ukraine's next Prosecutor General, Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said on June 16.

Kravchenko, 35, currently heads the State Tax Service and is expected to be formally introduced to lawmakers during a faction meeting of Zelensky's Servant of the People party on June 17. A vote on his confirmation is expected the same day, according to lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

The nomination ends a six-month vacancy at the top of Ukraine's prosecution service, following the resignation of Andriy Kostin in October 2024. First Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksiy Khomenko has served in an acting capacity since.

Kostin resigned amid a scandal involving prosecutors illegally obtaining disability status, which was discussed during a National Security and Defense Council meeting chaired by Zelensky.

Kostin later admitted to "many shameful facts of abuse" within the prosecutor's office.

Kravchenko, a native of Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast, has held several senior roles in law enforcement and regional government. He previously served as head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration and led the Bucha District Prosecutor's Office.

He is best known for serving as the lead prosecutor in the treason case against exiled pro-Kremlin former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was convicted of aiding and abetting Russia's war against Ukraine.

If confirmed, Kravchenko will take over an office tasked with overseeing wartime prosecutions, including war crimes investigations and anti-corruption efforts linked to Ukraine's ongoing reforms.

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