The U.S. Treasury Department said on Tuesday it has no indication of misuse of U.S. funds in Ukraine, but will continue to work with Ukrainian authorities to ensure safeguards are in place to prevent corruption, Reuters writes. This is the first reaction of the US Treasury Department to the scandal in Ukraine, where several high-ranking officials were dismissed on corruption charges.

• “We have no signs that US funds were not used in Ukraine for their intended purpose.
• We welcome the continued efforts of the Ukrainian authorities to work with us to ensure that there are adequate safeguards in place so that US aid reaches those for whom it is intended,” Treasury spokeswoman Megan Apper said in response to questions from Reuters.

Apper said the Treasury Department will continue to work closely with the World Bank to track U.S. payments “to confirm that they are being used as intended, and with Ukraine and other anti-corruption partners.”

Last week, the United States and the World Bank sent auditors to Kyiv to make sure “no aid or weapons are being diverted,” according to State Department Undersecretary for Policy Victoria Nuland, CNN reported.

List of Ukrainian officials dismissed due to corruption scandals

In Ukraine, five regional governors and four deputy ministers were fired after corruption scandals, one of which was against the Ministry of Defense, a full-scale Russian invasion of the country.

According to the representative of the government in the parliament, Taras Melnychuk, the governors of Dnipropetrovsk (center), Valentin Reznichenko, Zaporizhia (south), Oleksandr Starukh, and Sumy (north) regions. Dmytro Zhivytskyi, Kherson (South), Yaroslav Yanushevich and Oleksiy Kuleba of Kyiv will leave their positions.

In November, several Ukrainian publications accused Reznichenko of awarding tens of millions of euros worth of road repair contracts to a group co-founded by his girlfriend, who works as a fitness trainer.

According to the media, a judicial investigation is ongoing against him and his colleagues from the Sumy, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, and Kuleba’s dismissal is linked to the next appointment in the Presidential Administration.

The government also fired Deputy Minister of Defense Vyacheslav Shapovalov, whose resignation was already announced, Minister of Social Policy Vitaly Muzychenko, and two Deputy Ministers of Territorial Development Ivan Lukeria and Vyacheslav Negoda. Anatoliy Ivankevych and Viktor Vyshnyov, deputy heads of sea and river transport of Ukraine, were also dismissed from their positions.

Also, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine reported that five regional prosecutors – the southern Zaporizhzhia region, the central Kirovohrad region, as well as the northern Poltava, Sumy, and Chernihiv regions left their positions “upon request.”

The cascade of dismissals and layoffs followed media revelations about inflated prices in a contract to supply products to the Ukrainian military, marking the first corruption scandal at the Defense Ministry since the start of the war.

Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, the head of the army’s procurement department, who had been under suspension since December, was also dismissed.

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, cases of corruption were common. This scandal broke out in the context when Kyiv asked its Western allies, whose military and financial support is crucial, to send hundreds of tanks against Moscow, AFP notes.

Corruption scandal in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine

The Ukrainian publication Zn accuses the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which is headed by Oleksiy Reznikov, of purchasing food for the army at prices that are two to three times higher than Kyiv grocery prices, writes The Kyiv Independent.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine denied the accusations in the Ukrainian media, saying that the story has “signs of deliberate manipulation and misleading”, but did not provide additional details, reports The Kyiv Independent.

The Ministry of Defense has announced that it will require the Security Service to investigate “false information that harms our defense interests” while martial law is in place.

The Ukrainian publication Zn wrote about the contract of the Ministry of Defense for 2023 on the purchase of food from its sources in the army.

The publication notes that this contract with a total value of UAH 13.16 billion, which is equivalent to EUR 328.4 million, was concluded on December 23 and provides for the supply of food products to the Ukrainian military stationed in Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv and Cherkasy regions. .

The contract does not provide for the delivery of food to the frontline fighters, where “only delivery can make any purchase more expensive,” writes Zn.

Journalists claim that the Ministry of Defense agreed to pay 17 hryvnias (48 euro cents) for an egg, while in one of the capital’s stores its price is about 7 hryvnias (18 euro cents). A kilogram of potatoes ordered for the Ukrainian military costs 22 hryvnias (55 euro cents), and in Kyiv grocery stores the price is about 9 hryvnias (23 euro cents), reports Zn.

Immediately after the exposure in the media, the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on National Security, Defense and Intelligence summoned high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defense to answer the accusations.

The corruption scandal in which the deputy minister was detained

Also, several officials of central and regional executive bodies in Ukraine appear in a corruption investigation, as part of which Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Vasyl Lozinsky was arrested, who is accused of embezzling public funds for alternative energy sources in the winter months, reports CNN.

According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), Lozinsky is accused of receiving commissions in the amount of 400,000 dollars, in this way he was “exposed and embezzled from budget funds.” He would have received the money for assistance in signing contracts for the purchase of some equipment and machinery, in particular electric generators, at an inflated price.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau reported that about $49 million was allocated in the summer to “provide the population with alternative sources of electricity, heat and water supply during the winter due to the situation caused by the destruction of critical infrastructure.”

• “The investigation established that a number of officials of the central and regional executive bodies decided to waste part of the state funds.
• For this, they worked with a group of intermediaries and ensured the conclusion of purchase and sale contracts with pre-determined commercial structures, at prices inflated by almost 280 million hryvnias (about 7.6 million dollars),” the anti-corruption agents reported.

According to the source, several searches were conducted in this case, UAH 920,000 and $38,700 were seized from the offices of some businessmen.