Police detained Sergiy Bochkovsky, director of Ukraine's emergency services ministry, and his deputy Vasyl Stoyetsky, in full glare of journalists and photographers, accusing them of "high-level" corruption.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk issued a warning to other officials suspected of graft, with international backers in the West demanding Ukraine stamp out rampant corruption.
"This will happen to everyone who breaks the law and sneers at the Ukrainian state," Yatsenyuk said.
"When the country is at war and when we are counting every penny, they steal from people," he added.
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Avakov claimed that the staged nature of the arrests was necessary "as a preventive vaccination against all those corrupt people in power, who sadly number many".
The arrests were caught on video and immediately posted on video-sharing website YouTube, sparking an instant reaction online.
Political commentator Taras Berezovets joked on Twitter that officials should start each day "by reviewing the wanted posters" on the interior ministry's website.
"It was amusing to watch the worried faces of the ministers, each of them thinking it was for them," added Ukrainian journalist Peter Shuklinov.
Lawmaker and Kolomoisky ally Boris Filatov accused the government of behaving like a totalitarian state after today's public detentions.
"In my memory, the last time a government official was arrested live at a meeting was at North Korea's Politburo," he wrote on Facebook.
"Of course, the show arrest was a brilliant PR move after firing Kolomoisky," he added.