Here is the shift: the argument about Ukrainian military procurement has moved from jackets to audits. In 2023 it was leaked invoices and a deputy minister’s resignation. By 2026 it was classified government audits, quoted by the New York Times, putting a price on the leakage.
Food first, then jackets
It started in January 2023 with an investigation by the outlet ZN.UA. Its reporting alleged that ministry officials used a dummy company to buy army food at two to three times the going price, on a contract valued at Hr.13 billion ($330 million). Deputy Minister Viacheslav Shapovalov, who handled logistics for the Armed Forces, resigned on January 24, and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov accepted it. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau opened its own inquiry. Reznikov also let go Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the contentious chief of the ministry’s state procurement department, while insisting all along that nothing improper happened in buying supplies.
Then the jackets. ZN.UA claimed the ministry handed over $86 for each jacket that Turkish invoices valued at $29, and that it paid for winter jackets and received light ones, which the ministry disputed. The supplier, Vector Avia, had sold the ministry $20 million worth of jackets in August 2022. Police took an interest two months later and charged the company’s “founder and director.” Ukrainska Pravda found that one of its co-founders was the 24-year-old nephew of Henadii Kasai, a lawmaker in the governing Servant of the People party who sits on the parliamentary defense committee. Kasai said he did not know about the deal and denied a conflict of interest.
Reznikov denied everything and offered to resign if the lawmaker Anastasia Radina or journalist Mykhailo Tkach could show that the ministry paid for winter jackets and got light ones. Both declined the bet.
Outsiders see little of this. Procurement data is classified in wartime and reaches the public mostly through leaks, and activists and media outlets are pressing to have the food and clothing deals made public.
A wider purge
The January scandal triggered a wider clear-out. President Zelensky fired a number of senior officials and barred them from travelling abroad on anything but official business. By August 2023 the pressure had reached the recruitment offices: after an inspection turned up 112 criminal proceedings, he dismissed all the regional military commissioners. “Officials who confused their shoulder straps with profit will definitely be brought to justice,” he said.
What the 2026 audits found
According to the New York Times, which saw classified audits covering 2024 and 2025, about US$1.2 billion went missing in 2024 alone through fraud, waste and plain mismanagement of weapons buying. One case: the Pavlohrad Chemical Plant supplied thousands of defective mortar shells, and its director, Leonid Shyman, was arrested. Even so, the Defence Procurement Agency kept giving him contracts, including a US$280 million one during his release on bail. Seven of the 10 largest arms makers got new contracts despite fraud investigations, missed deliveries or arrested executives. Auditors counted 18 companies that won deals after failing to deliver on earlier ones; six had never finished a single contract.
The costliest example was a 2024 tender for rocket artillery ammunition. Three bids came in at about US$4,200, US$4,600 and US$5,100 per rocket, for identical rockets from the same Turkish factory. The contract went to the highest bidder, a Czechoslovak Group subsidiary acting as middleman, adding around US$130 million to the bill. Auditors found no justification.
Sources
- Investigative Stories from Ukraine: Defense Ministry at center of procurement scandal once again (Kyiv Independent)
- Several Senior Ukrainian Officials Resign Amid Corruption Allegations (Kyiv Post)
- Zelensky dismisses officials in charge of military recruitment offices amid corruption scandal (CNN)
- Ukraine lost over US$1 billion on defence procurement in one year (NYT via Yahoo)
