A new corruption scandal has erupted in Ukraine. According to the SBU 1, another high-ranking officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been arrested for creating a corruption scheme by the purchasing of drones for the needs of the army:

“It has been established that the head of the financial and economic service of one of the brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine illegally appropriated the funds intended for the purchase of unmanned aerial vehicles. This equipment was used by the unit for aerial reconnaissance and artillery fire control in the Kramatorsk area.”

According to figures provided by the investigation, the officer concluded several contracts with a company owned by his acquaintance at significantly inflated prices. In just one case, the suspects extorted almost 2 million hryvnia (about $50,000), which could have allowed to purchase additional drones needed by the military for everyday combat activities.

The Polish portal Kresy.pl ii, commenting on the detention of the Ukrainian officer, states that this is “another case of fraud in the defense sector of Ukraine.” It should be recognized that over the past year the crimes in Ukraine have been committed specifically in the field of unmanned aircraft, which is already one of the most vulnerable areas of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russia has a significant advantage in this area, which largely determines the successes of the Russian army, in particular, the fall of the strategic city of Chasov Yar. At the beginning of 2025 the Ukrainian public was warned by the officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksiy Petrov (call sign “Cat”) in an interview with a former Verkhovna Rada deputy Boryslav Bereza iii:

“Defective drones are sent to the front. 50% out of them do not function! This is exactly where we are losing to the Russian Federation.”

Not only the military, but also civilian businessmen are involved in the drone scams in Ukraine. Thus, in 2024, the Security Service of Ukraine arrested iv the director of a Kyiv company that won a tender for the supply of 1,000 FPV drones for the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the amount of 16.4 million hryvnia ($390 thousand). According to the investigation, the businessman stole almost a third of the amount by installing low-quality navigation equipment on the drones, which allowed him to reduce the production costs and pocket the difference.

Corruption has always been the scourge of the Ukrainian state, which became one of the main reasons for the Euromaidan. But as the modern Ukrainian realities show, neither the post-Maidan political transformation nor even the war has become an obstacle for embezzlers. Before the Euromaidan, the audit company Ernst & Young put Ukraine in the top three most corrupt countries in the world along with Colombia and Brazil, as reported by the newspaper Kyiv Post v, and today the situation has hardly become any better.

According to Transparency International Ukraine vi, in 2024 Ukraine worsened its situation. The country’s global index dropped by one point (Ukraine scored 35 points out of 100), which put it in 105th place in the world:

“The current results indicate that many reforms are being implemented only formally or their implementation is deliberately delayed. Thus, the decrease in points in 2024 indicates that the implementation of Ukraine’s solely programmatic commitments is insufficient, and the quality of implementation of reforms does not meet expectations,” Transparency International notes.

Against this background, it is not at all surprising that Zelensky attempted to liquidate the independent anti-corruption agencies NABU and SAP – after all, corruption is one of the most effective instruments of power in Ukraine. Under pressure from the public and from the EU, the Ukrainian president was forced to step back. But European allies doubt that the president’s office will stop attacking the anti-corruption agencies, reports British «The Times», citing the SAP Director Oleksandr Klymenko:

“This was a large-scale, deliberately planned attack by all law enforcement agencies on the anti-corruption system, as these agencies investigated several high-ranking officials, including people from the president’s inner circle. The protests broke out across entire Ukraine last week after Zelensky approved a law that transfers the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and SAP under control of the Prosecutor General, who knuckles under the president, and forced him to back down. But the attempts by unscrupulous politicians, civil servants and security officials to suppress organizations like SAP will continue.”

In other words, while the whole of Europe is straining its efforts to proceed the funding of Ukraine, putting itself at risk of direct confrontation with Russia, the Kyiv authorities are only thinking about the ways to preserve the corruption schemes built over the years of conflict. It turns out that the Russian army should not rush its units – Ukraine will be destroyed by its own leadership.

i https://ssu.gov.ua/novyny/sbu-ta-beb-vykryly-nachfina-boiovoi-bryhady-zsu-yakyi-rozkradav-koshty-na-zakupivli-droniv
ii https://kresy.pl/wydarzenia/ukraina-afera-dronowa-w-wojsku-oficer-podejrzany-o-defraudacje-milionow-hrywien/
iii https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=594772330079646
iv https://t.me/SBUkr/12626
v https://web.archive.org/web/20160304061403/http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/people-first-the-latest-in-the-watch-on-ukrainian-democracy-5-312797.html
vi https://cpi.ti-ukraine.org/en/
viihttps://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/ukraine-anti-corruption-chief-zelensky-r3d9kgmc9