Yet another corruption scandal has rocked Ukraine’s military, with employees from a Ukrainian arms firm and defence ministry officials accused of embezzling $40 million. The revelations come as Volodymyr Zelensky urges Western nations to provide more weapons and U.S. Republicans want more accountability on how American taxpayers’ money is being spent in Ukraine.
Five people have been charged in Ukraine for mass procurement fraud. High-ranking officials of the defence ministry, as well as managers of arms supplier Lviv Arsenal, were involved in the scheme. They signed a contract in August 2022, six months into the war with Russia, for 100,000 artillery shells worth $39.6 million. However, the goods were never delivered and the money was instead sent to various accounts in Ukraine and the Balkans, investigators said on Saturday, January 27th. If found guilty, the accused face up to 12 years in prison. According to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, the stolen funds have been seized and will be returned to the defence budget.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to clamp down on corruption in a bid to speed up his country’s accession to the European Union and NATO. Both blocs have demanded widespread anti-corruption reforms before Kyiv can join them.
Ukraine has been called one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and the war with Russia—which started almost two years ago—has brought a series of new scandals involving Ukraine’s military. As we reported, former Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov was dismissed from his post in September over various corruption cases, and all of the heads of the regional armed forces recruiting offices were fired in August after it emerged some of them were taking bribes to help young men avoid military service. In January, the new Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said an audit had uncovered corruption connected to military procurement worth $260 million in only the four months he had been in post.
News of corruption has increased scepticism in the United States about whether giving further aid to Ukraine makes sense. The U.S. has given Ukraine $79 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian aid since the Russian invasion, and Republicans want more accountability from Ukraine before they spend tens of billions of dollars more of taxpayers’ money.
“What is the endgame and the strategy in Ukraine? How will we have accountability for the funds? We need to know that Ukraine will not be another Afghanistan,” U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said recently.
Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday warned that a drop in aid from the United States to Kyiv would send a poor message, as U.S. President Joe Biden faces a Republican blockade on further support. In an interview with German national broadcaster ARD, the Ukraine president also said if Republican former President Donald Trump were to return to the White House after this November’s presidential elections, he would likely bring a “different policy” on the war. Zelensky previously said that Trump’s assertion of being able to “end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours” is “simplistic” and potentially “dangerous.”
