Workers at a Ukrainian armaments company colluded with representatives of the defense ministry to siphon off about 40 million US dollars (£31.5 million), which were intended to purchase 100,000 mortar rounds for the conflict with Russia, according to a report from Ukraine’s security service.
Late on Saturday, the SBU announced that five individuals had been charged; one of them had been arrested while attempting to enter Ukraine. They can go to jail for up to 12 years if found guilty.
The probe is underway while Kyiv tries to combat corruption in an effort to expedite its entry into NATO and the European Union. Before Kyiv can align with either of the two blocs, officials from both have insisted on extensive anti-corruption changes.
Well in advance of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was elected in 2019 on an anti-corruption platform.
The recent dismissals of high-ranking officials, most notably Ivan Bakanov, the former head of the State Security Service, in July 2022, have been presented by the president and his advisors as evidence of their efforts to combat corruption.
The present probe, according to security officials, began in August 2022 when officials signed a contract with the arms company Lviv Arsenal for artillery shells valued at 1.5 billion hryvnias (£31 million).
The plan was for the workers of the company to receive pay and then transfer the funds to a foreign business that would ship the ammunition to Ukraine.
Investigators claimed that the money was sent to other accounts in Ukraine and the Balkans, but the goods were never delivered.
The money was subsequently taken, according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, and will be put back into the defense budget.