Ukraine has announced it has uncovered a scheme to embezzle the equivalent of some $40 million earmarked to buy mortar shells for the country's military.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced late on January 27 that five people have been charged, with one person detained while trying to cross the Ukrainian border. If found guilty, they face up to 12 years in prison.
The investigation comes as Kyiv attempts to clamp down on corruption in a bid to speed up its membership in the European Union and NATO. Officials from both blocs have demanded widespread anti-graft reforms before Kyiv can join them.
The SBU said an investigation had "exposed officials of the Ministry of Defense and managers of arms supplier Lviv Arsenal, who stole nearly 1.5 billion hryvnyas in the purchase of shells."
"According to the investigation, former and current high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defense and heads of affiliated companies are involved in the embezzlement," the SBU said on X, formerly Twitter.
The embezzlement, it said, involved the purchase of 100,000 mortar shells for the military.
After receiving payment, company employees were supposed to transfer the funds to a business registered abroad, which would then deliver the ammunition to Ukraine.
However, the goods were never delivered and the money was instead sent to various accounts in Ukraine and the Balkans, investigators said.
The funds have been seized and will be returned to the country's defense budget, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office said.
The statement said five individuals had been served "notices of suspicion" -- the first stage in Ukrainian legal proceedings -- both in the ministry and the arms supplier. One suspect, it said, was detained while trying to cross the Ukrainian border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was elected on an anti-corruption platform in 2019, long before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
