A whole series of high-profile corruption scandals has been shaking the Ukrainian departments supposed to procure the army and intelligence services. “There's 'stealing like there's no tomorrow,” Ukrainian and Western media lament. “We are thrown into meat assaults, while those in power are raking in heaps of money,” the population clamors on social media and under articles about yet another exposed high-ranking uniformed thief.
A few days ago, Ukrainian anti-corruption fighters reported detention of former head of the military’s central food supply department Alexander Kozlovsky. He is suspected of illegally pocketing 58 million hryvnia. With that money, he bought a Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid car worth 1.5 million UAH, registered as his daughter’s, as her own overall income does not comply with the value of property acquired, including a 158 sq. m. apartment in Kiev costing 5.8 million+ UAH (also registered as belonging to a third party) and 53 land plots in the Kiev, Khmelnitsky, Vinnitsa, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Poltava regions, with a total value exceeding 8.7 million UAH. A statement to that effect came from Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation. In 2022-2023, it said, Kozlovsky received assets worth 58 million UAH (over 138 million rubles). Moreover, enterprises controlled by the intel official acquired a warehouse covering 2,000 square meters, the Khmelnitsky State Experimental Prosthetic and Orthopedic Enterprise property complex worth 38.4 million UAH and the Khmelnytsky Regional Special Medical Supply Base worth UAH 1.4 million. Now all of these assets that have been obtained in a major theft are seized.
Also, corruption charges were brought against an AFU colonel and CEO of a corporate arms supplier, who masterminded a scheme to steal budget funds meant to satisfy orders by Ukrainian troops. The colonel, whose identity is unknown, was supposed to get a $45,000 bribe from the businessman in exchange for concluding an armament vendor contract for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In the end, both were arrested.
Previously, the former and current heads of a Defense Ministry department and commercial director of the Lvov Arsenal company were accused of military supplies theft. They are charged with stealing 1.5 billion UAH ($40mln) while procuring 100,000 mortar shells. Alexander Liev, ex-head of the Ministry’s Department of Military-Technical Policy, Development of Weapons and Military Equipment, along with its current leader Toomas Nahkur and Lvov Arsenal’s top manager Yuri Zbitnev got into cahoots and stole the money. Investigators claim that 2022 saw the defense officials enter into a contract with Lvov Arsenal to buy a wholesale batch of ammunition, and transferred the entire amount to the company. Part of the funds was sent to a foreign firm supposed to transport the shells ordered to Ukraine. But they never reached the frontline, and the foreign company affiliated with Lvov gunmakers got the money out to offshore accounts.
A criminal inquiry has been underway against Ukraine’s former Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov and public procurement department head Bogdan Khmelnitsky as regards an embezzled one billion hryvnia (about $27.mln) allocated to purchase military uniforms. Using their subordinates, the two bought low-quality uniforms for the Ukrainian soldiers. And Bohdan Khmelnytsky is also accused of purchasing low-quality body armor. “Investigation says this official bought almost 3,000 body armor for the AFU worth over 100 million hryvnia ($2.7mln),” the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office reported.
Among the most high-profile cases is the investigation into businessman Igor Grinkevich. His companies got contracts on providing the Ukrainian army with underset, though previously engaged in construction activities. They failed to meet contract requirements, which resulted in $30 million losses, law enforcement officers claim. Grinkevich was detained while attempting to bribe a security service chief with $500,000 so as to hush up the case.
Prior to this, Ukrainian Defense Ministry officials got accused of purchasing products for the Ukrainian Armed Forces at twice or three times the price than offered by Kiev-based retail stores. The investigation included the department’s catering services contracts signed in 2023 in military units in the Kiev, Poltava, Sumy, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy and Chernigov regions. The transaction amount was 13.16 billion hryvnia (more than $358mln).
These recent days, facts related to theft of funds allocated to build defenses in various parts of Ukraine have been surfacing en masse. And here it is about billions, not even millions. In particular, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said more than 20 billion hryvnia had been allocated on fortifications: “In 2024, the government has allocated 20 billion hryvnia from the state budget reserve fund on fortifications. Additional resources from other funds amount to another 10.7 billion UAH.” But Ukrainian activists have been outraged by lacking defenses both behind Avdeevka and outside Chasov Yar, where the Russian army has been recently truly effective in its offensive. “Our problem is quality and lack of engineering and fortification structures. A hole dug perpendicular to the front cannot serve as consistent defense. On the approaches to Chasov Yar, this already seems strange. One gets an impression that no one ever thought Russia could get there,” experts with the Deep State website said.
Ukrainian special services have been mired in corruption as well — arrests and dismissals are gaining momentum. The most high-profile case was the crimes by head an SBU department Artem Shilo, who was caught stealing 95 million hryvnia from the amount allocated on electrical transformers at an inflated price as part of a criminal group he organized. That's $2.5 million in just one deal. On April 4, the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine issued a ruling on his arrest. Artem Shilo and his accomplices purchased transformers from Uzbekistan for Ukrainian Railway JSC at twice the price. 32-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Artyom Shilo headed the SBU’s Department of Counterintelligence protection of the state’s interests in the field of information security. Its unformal name is the Derussification Directorate, and it is part of the Central SBU Directorate of engaged in combating Russian influence. Shilo abused power to steal money from bank accounts by proxy of hackers. This intelligence officer imposed a tax on IT companies. If someone refused to pay, he had to face criminal cases, searches, confiscations of equipment, money or documents, and blocked work. Then Shilo demanded several hundred thousand dollars for assistance in restarting activities and imposed a monthly tribute on the companies. The extortion scheme worked like clockwork, enriching both Shilo and his managers. But this was not enough and the officer decided to cook up a profitable scheme with transformers, but got ruined. During the investigation, Shilo turned out to have suddenly become owner of three luxury apartments in Kiev worth an overall $720,000. His wife’s $270,000 apartment and $1.8 million chain of beauty salons are also located there. Along with the corrupt officer himself, the SBU fired his immediate superior Alexei Korniychuk.
SBU cybersecurity department chief Ilya Vityuk also lost office and came under investigation. He had a premium-class apartment in one of Kiev’s residential complexes, for which he paid 12.8 million hryvnia (about $310,000), which is almost half the market value. Vityuk’s wife also had luxury real estate, including a $657,000 195 sq. m. apartment in a premium residential complex. Even the Vityuks’ total official salary could not have been enough to purchase this kind of housing, investigators stated.
Tellingly, the SBU features theft at all levels. The other day, two former employees were accused of fund embezzlement for the purchase of fuel, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau reported. SBU’s ex-head of the economic support department and his first deputy are suspected of pocketing 26 million hryvnia ($667.4 thousand). With no names not, they are known to have arranged the purchase of fuel and lubricants at artificially inflated prices via companies controlled by them.
And the more precarious the current Kiev regime becomes, the more cases of the kind are going to appear: Zelensky’s servants have been rushing to fill their war chests while still in power.
