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Ukraine anti-corruption agencies said four people had been detained in a probe into “large-scale” corruption in the procurement of drones and jamming systems.
A group including a lawmaker, two local officials and the head of a National Guard unit organized schemes to misappropriate local authorities’ budget funds in 2024-2025, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said Saturday in statements posted on Facebook.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had moved last month to effectively place the two bodies under the control of the Prosecutor General’s Office, but reversed his decision.
David Arakhamiya, the head of Zelenskiy’s party in parliament, confirmed that the detained lawmaker was from his faction.
One of schemes was to conclude state contracts with suppliers of jamming equipment at inflated prices, with as much as 30% of the contract amount returned in the form of kickbacks, the anti-graft bodies said. A similar mechanism was used in buying so-called FPV drones, when a military unit signed a 10 million hryvnia ($239,300) contract with a producer, overpaying by about $80,000, the agencies said.
Zelenskiy said he’d met with the agency chiefs in his office, calling the schemes “absolutely immoral.”
“I thanked the heads of the anti-corruption agencies for this work – for this investigation,” the president said in his daily video address to the nation.
Ukraine largely depends on foreign assistance to repel Russia’s invasion, which is now in its fourth year. Kyiv has to show progress in rooting out corruption to keep money flowing, as well as to support its bid for European Union membership.
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