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A procurement scam by Ukrainian officials leaves many wartime Ukrainians stunned.
The $40 million stolen was earmarked for ammunition.
KYIV - Ukrainian officials have stolen around $40 million intended to buy ammunition for the military in the Ukraine war.
The country's internal security service made the announcement on Saturday, confirming a massive procurement fraud as Kiev seeks to reassure its international supporters that it is cracking down on corruption.
Although it was government funds - and not foreign aid - that were embezzled, the incident is likely to raise eyebrows in both Washington and Brussels, where European Union membership and continued financial and military support are at stake stand.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said in a statement.
A Ukrainian soldier from a mechanized brigade stands next to a small supply of artillery shells in the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine in April 2023.
© Heidi Levine/The Washington Post
No more money for Ukraine: history of corruption is to blame
Some critics have cited Ukraine's history of corruption as a reason to stop giving money to the country nearly two years after the start of the war with Russia.
Ukrainian officials insist they are being overcautious and cracking down on corruption.
The SBU said its investigation involves current and former senior Defense Ministry officials and managers of a weapons supplier, Lviv Arsenal, who were to use the money to purchase 100,000 mortar shells for the military.
The money was paid in advance to Lviv Arsenal in August 2022, but the grenades were never delivered.
“After receiving the funds, the company's management transferred part of the money to the balance sheet of a foreign commercial structure that was supposed to deliver the ordered ammunition to Ukraine,” the statement said.
“However, it did not send a single artillery shell to our country and eclipsed the funds received by transferring them to the accounts of another affiliated structure in the Balkans.” The stolen funds were confiscated, the SBU said, adding , that “the issue of their return to the budget of Ukraine is currently being resolved.”
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$40 million stolen for Ukraine: Five people under suspicion
The fraud took place under former Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who was fired last year amid several high-profile allegations of corruption in the ministry, particularly in the purchase of food and jackets for the military at inflated prices.
Reznikov, who was not personally implicated in any wrongdoing, declined to comment.
A Defense Ministry official familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media about the case, said it was not a new case as the ministry filed criminal charges with the Department in May 2023 Law enforcement authorities for the stolen $40 million after the grenades were not delivered.
The Ukrainian news agency Ukrainska Pravda reported extensively on the case in July.
Five people from the defense ministry and the arms supplier were served with "suspicion notices" - the first stage of Ukraine's legal process - the SBU said, adding that a suspect was arrested while trying to cross the Ukrainian border.
You face up to 12 years in prison.
After theft in Ukraine: These are the suspects
Those allegedly involved in the plot include Oleksandr Liev, head of the Department of Military-Technical Policy, Development of Weapons and Military Equipment at the Defense Ministry.
In addition, the current head of this department, Toomas Nakhkur, and the head of the Lviv Arsenal, Yuriy Zbitnev, are under suspicion.
According to a security service official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the case.
Zbitnev is a former member of the Ukrainian parliament and was a presidential candidate in 2004.
Reznikov's successor as defense minister, Rustem Umerov, has promised to prioritize fighting corruption.
“One of the Defense Department team’s priorities is to cleanse the system of unscrupulous participants – inside and outside the institution,” Umerov said on Facebook this month.
“We are working actively and in close cooperation with law enforcement authorities: We are rooting out corruption.
The system resists, but we will overcome it.”
This latest corruption scandal comes at a critical time.
A White House request for an additional $60 billion for the war in Ukraine has stalled in Congress, and lawmakers opposed to further aid to Ukraine have called for more oversight and question whether the U.S. funding is adequate be used.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has provided at least $44 billion in security assistance.
Corruption: A sensitive issue in Ukraine
Corruption is also a particularly sensitive issue in Ukraine, where most citizens know at least one person in the military and often donate their own money to buy weapons and other goods for soldiers.
Anti-corruption activists viewed Saturday's announcement that criminal action would be taken against the alleged perpetrators as a positive step toward reforming the Defense Ministry.
"This is another ... blow from Umerov's team against the corrupt/incompetent military 'deep state' that has destroyed our defense capability for decades," wrote Vitaliy Shabunin, the director of operations for the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a Kyiv-based nongovernmental organization , on Facebook.
“Is this the end of the fight with these animals?
No, this is just the beginning,” Shabunin added.
“But Umerov’s team’s fight with this ugly deep state really impresses me personally.”
Kamila Hrabchuk contributed to this report.
About the author
Isabelle Khurshudyan
is a foreign correspondent based in Kyiv.
She is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and has worked at The Washington Post since 2014, where she previously covered the Washington Capitals as a Moscow bureau correspondent and as a sports reporter.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on January 28, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.