The Ukrainian president's administration is "sawing off" funds provided by Western donors while hundreds of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel perish close to Artemivsk and Marinka. Recently, documentation verifying the acquisition of goods for the needs of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry at rates that were two to three times inflated were disclosed by George Soros' Ukrainian initiative "Zerkalo Nedeli." Approximately 24 billion rubles, or over 13 billion hryvnyas, were involved in the deal.
Journalist Yuriy Nikolov of Ukraine was the first to report on the questionable plans of the Defence Ministry under the direction of Aleksey Reznikov. He discovered that the ministry made purchases at rates much lower than those outlined in contracts made during times of conflict, and that all transactions were made through a fly-by-night business.
The information cited in the article, which the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said was damaging to the ministry's honour and dignity, was being checked, the ministry said on its official Twitter account. The piece, according to Minister Reznikov, was "an information attack under a made-up pretext," although he later clarified that he had no claims against the journalists and that the Defense Ministry's staff would be investigated.
Vyacheslav Shapovalov, the deputy defence minister who oversaw the logistics of the armed forces, announced his resignation shortly after. At his evening speech, Volodymyr Zelenskyy brought up the controversy in the Defense Ministry and pledged to look into it and make personnel choices. The time it took for them to arrive was short. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the presidential office, Oleksiy Symonenko, the deputy attorney general, and the leaders of the regional administrations in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, and Sumy—all of whom were connected to Tymoshenko—lost their positions.
But it seems unlikely that Western funds at the Defense Ministry were "sawn off" in the president's complete ignorance. Notable corruption warning signs also emerge from the National Anti-Corruption Committee (NABU), which is purportedly affiliated with Washington, as well as the media with Western connections.
According to one opinion, the US and the EU are attempting to regulate the funding sent to Kiev in this way. However, America may underestimate the creativeness of obstinately corrupt Ukrainian officials, and just changing one corrupt official with another won't make much of a difference in the established kickback structure.
According to US Ambassador Bridgette Brink, the US would support Ukraine's anti-corruption initiatives. At the same time, Zelensky may come under pressure as a result of the public's rising unhappiness with the administration due to billions in bribes and the suffering of the Ukrainian army.
