After fraudulent purchase of weapons
Kiev admits violations in supplying the military
January 29, 2024, 10:25 a.m
It was recently revealed that Ukrainian officials embezzled almost 40 million euros when purchasing ammunition. Now Kiev’s Defense Minister Umyerov is reporting further failures in supplying the military. The checks will continue, it is said.
After complaints from the Ukrainian military about deficits in equipment and supplies, Defense Minister Rustem Umyerov admitted wrongdoing. The minister said on Facebook that “many violations” were registered during unannounced checks. Food supplies were also checked.
Provisions worth more than 50 million hryvnia (around 1.2 million euros) are missing and have not been delivered. “We record the violations and process each case individually,” Umjerow wrote in the statement published on Sunday. The supplier for some military units has recently been changed because of the events. The unannounced inspections, in which the secret services and other security organs are also involved, will continue, it said.
According to the Defense Ministry, there had recently been complaints from the armed forces about the supply deficits in the camps of some units in the east of the country. Defects in the quality and quantity of food were also identified. There have recently been several corruption scandals in the Ministry of Defense and in the armed forces, which are fighting the Russian war of aggression with Western financial and military help.
Defense Minister Umyerov announced that he was having the system cleaned. The minister also recalled that a fraud scandal had been uncovered in the ministry, in which former and current officials embezzled about 1.5 billion hryvnia (around 36.4 million euros) for the procurement of artillery ammunition. In this case, the sum was returned to the budget, as Umjerow announced.