Ukraine is rocked by a corruption scandal linked to army procurement. This Sunday, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense promised internal “audits” within his ministry. Oleksiï Reznikov acknowledged during a press conference that his ministry’s anti-corruption services had “failed in their task” and that they needed to be “completely restructured”.
According to him, an “internal audit of all public contracts” has been launched and there will also be “an audit of international technical assistance”, at a time when kyiv is receiving more and more Western armaments. Oleksiï Reznikov, however, remained evasive about the possibility of his own resignation, while several Ukrainian media have raised this possibility. He claimed that the decision was up to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Fight against corruption and invasion
Ukraine was rocked at the end of January by a series of resignations and dismissals against the backdrop of a corruption scandal revealed by the press which related to a contract signed by the Ministry of Defense for an allegedly overvalued amount and concerning food products intended for to the soldiers. Several senior officials of this ministry have been removed from their posts, while Oleksiï Reznikov had initially denounced “unfounded” accusations.
It was the first major corruption case to break out since the beginning of the Russian offensive, in a country accustomed to this kind of business before the war. The Ukrainian authorities then launched a wave of searches against administrations, civil servants and public figures to show their desire to make the fight against corruption a priority in the context of the war effort and the western aid.