While engaged in an ongoing war with Russia, Ukraine has also been fighting hard on another front: against internal corruption and embezzlement. This month, Ukrainian officials announced that they had uncovered a massive scheme involving weaponry purchased for the country’s military and that several conspirators had been arrested.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said they had found evidence of embezzlement between the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and Lviv Arsenal, an arms supplier. Ukraine paid around 1.5 billion Ukrainian hryvnia (almost $40 million USD) in exchange for 100,000 mortar rounds from Lviv Arsenal. However, the Defense Ministry never received the ammunition, which is critical in this stage of Ukraine’s grinding defensive war.
Ukraine says corrupt officials stole $40 million meant to buy arms for the war with Russia https://t.co/Tirs8pzxt6
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 28, 2024
According to the SBU, five people were indicted, and a former defense ministry official connected with the scandal was detained while trying to cross the Ukrainian border. Various high-ranking officials with the Defense Ministry and with Lviv Arsenal were implicated in the embezzlement scheme.
In a statement with local media, Yurii Zbitnev, Lviv Arsenal’s CEO, said that the official responsible for the ammunition contract had been fired and that Lviv Arsenal was working with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry to return the funds back to the country. Some of the funds were transferred to foreign accounts, including some in the Balkans.
This is not the first financial scandal Ukraine has faced in recent times. In December 2023, a senior Defense Ministry official was arrested in a similar embezzlement scheme for $40 million worth of artillery shells. This was one of the more high-profile corruption cases recently, but several more have plagued Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.
In addition, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, in September 2023. The official reason was to give the ministry “new approaches” to their war with Russia, but many analysts believe the ongoing corruption played a large role.
Aside from internal pressures, Ukraine faces heavy international scrutiny to clean up the corruption in its military and government. The United States has given more than $75 billion in financial and military aid to Ukraine since the war’s beginning, but American politicians are hesitant to offer more aid, in part due to concerns about meeting the needs of Americans at home.
The European Union is also putting pressure on Ukraine to fix its corruption. Ukraine has been making efforts to join the EU for some time, but the EU has been reluctant to let the country join while it’s still at war. In addition, the EU said it wants Ukraine to continue improving its anti-corruption efforts as part of the requirements for consideration to join.
