It comes at a pivotal moment in the war, as Ukraine prosecutes a counteroffensive in the country’s south and east that relies heavily on Western allies for military assistance.
Just last week, the United States’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with three high-ranking Ukrainian officials to discuss efforts to stamp out wartime corruption.
“The question here is, ‘Where is the money?’” said Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Ukraine, a group dedicated to rooting out public graft that is now focused on war profiteering.
Though precise details have not emerged, the irregularities suggest that procurement officials in the ministry did not vet suppliers, or allowed weapons dealers to walk off with money without delivering the armaments.
Oleksii Goncharenko, a member of Parliament in the opposition European Solidarity party, said of Mr. Zelensky’s record, “I cannot praise his efforts in fighting corruption during the war period.”
That high-level cases of corruption are coming to light is positive, said Andrii Borovyk, director of Transparency International in Ukraine, rather than an indication of a nation bogged down by insider dealing; it shows that the country can fight the war and graft at the same time, he said.
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