The Ukrainian police have arrested a senior Protection Ministry official on suspicions that he embezzled practically $40 million as a part of a fraudulent buy of artillery shells for Ukraine’s army.
The Ukrainian authorities have been working to scrub up the ministry since studies of graft and monetary mismanagement led to the removal in September of the minister at the time. Ukraine’s security service introduced the arrest of the senior official, whose identify was not launched, on Friday.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has additionally made tackling corruption considered one of his key wartime objectives, not solely to reassure Ukraine’s Western allies that their billions of {dollars} in support aren’t being siphoned off, but in addition to make sure an environment friendly allocation of assets because the nation’s army runs quick on weapons and ammunition in its battle to fend off Russia’s forces.
Ukrainian troopers and commanders have said in latest days that their dearth of artillery shells has led them to cut back some army operations and has weakened Ukraine’s skill to resist relentless Russian assaults.
“We will not transfer ahead when now we have nothing left to shoot,” Yehor Chernev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s committee on nationwide safety, protection and intelligence, mentioned in an interview on Friday.
Within the case introduced on Friday, Ukrainian prosecutors said in a statement that the Protection Ministry official had developed a system to purchase artillery shells at inflated costs.
In December 2022, they mentioned, the official signed an settlement with a producer for the acquisition of a batch of artillery shells. The contract was later deserted when a procurement company lately created by the ministry struck a brand new take care of the identical producer that decreased prices by 30 % and considerably shortened supply time by eliminating a overseas middleman.
However prosecutors say that the official nonetheless prolonged the earlier contract and transferred practically 1.5 billion Ukrainian hryvnias, about $40 million, to the overseas middleman firm. The Ukrainian authorities mentioned that the shells had not but been delivered and that the ministry was working to get well the cash.
A pretrial investigation has been opened in opposition to the official, who has been faraway from his duties, in line with Ukraine’s safety service. If convicted, he might withstand 15 years in jail.
This isn’t the primary corruption scandal to affect Ukraine during the war. Final winter, two Protection Ministry officers have been arrested over studies of the acquisition of overpriced eggs for the military.
Confronted with mounting stress to take care of the misspending, Mr. Zelensky changed his protection minister, Oleksii Reznikov, in September, though Mr. Reznikov was not personally implicated within the accusations of mismanaged contracts. The Ukrainian president additionally fired the heads of army recruitment workplaces in August amid accusations that some had taken bribes from folks looking for to keep away from army service.
To date, the revelations of mismanagement have not directly affected the foreign military and financial aid sent to Ukraine. However they’ve fueled arguments of some American lawmakers who’ve balked at sustaining help for Ukraine and demanded tight accountability for each supply. Congress declined again this past week to pass a $50 billion security package for Ukraine, pushing again negotiations to subsequent 12 months.
Ukrainian officers keep that their persistence in pursuing investigations into accusations of mismanagement and embezzlement exhibits their willingness to sort out corruption, even within the tough circumstances of conflict.
“That is an especially vital case the place anticorruption mechanisms, the Ministry of Protection, labored,” Illarion Pavliuk, a ministry spokesman, said on national television.
Tackling corruption has additionally develop into an important situation as Ukraine strikes ahead with its utility to hitch the European Union. The bloc’s leaders officially opened accession negotiations this month, and so they have burdened the necessity to pursue efforts to strengthen anticorruption mechanisms.
Combating corruption was considered one of seven standards that the European Fee outlined final 12 months as a prerequisite to opening accession negotiations, which might final a decade or extra. In its latest assessment of Ukraine’s progress, the fee mentioned that Kyiv ought to “proceed constructing a reputable monitor report of investigations, prosecutions and last courtroom selections in high-level corruption circumstances.”
On taking workplace in September, Ukraine’s new protection minister, Rustem Umerov, told the country’s Parliament that there could be “zero tolerance for corruption” in his administration.
“Each stolen hryvnia prices the life and security of our troopers,” he mentioned.