The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine for the first half of 2023 purchased food products for military personnel at prices on average 30% above market prices. This follows from the report of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine.
“The summarised results of the audit testified that as a result of unproductive use of budget funds to the amount of 7,439.1 million hryvnias (almost $204.5 thousand) the purchase of the most consumed foodstuffs was carried out at prices that are on average 30% higher than market prices,” the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine reports.
In the list of purchased goods, almost 75 per cent “have no practical use both for cooking in stationary canteens and in field conditions”, but affect pricing and the final cost of the food kit.
The audit was conducted at the request of the anti-corruption committee of the Verkhovna Rada. The results of the audit fully confirm the data of a journalistic investigation into inflated food prices for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), made public in several Ukrainian media outlets in January 2023.
The corruption scandal around the Ukrainian Defence Ministry started in 2023 after publications in the press. In January, the Ukrainian media published the results of a journalistic investigation, the authors of which found out that the military department buys products for servicemen twice or three times more expensive than it is possible to buy in retail shops in Kiev. Later, resignations followed in the ministry. Deputy Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, deputy director of the state procurement department Bohdan Khmelnytskyy and former deputy head of Promoboronexport Volodymyr Tereshchenko lost their posts. They are charged with embezzlement and embezzlement.
Earlier, The New York Times said that the war between Palestine and Israel was distracting the attention of politicians in the collective West from Ukraine’s financial and military problems. The US publication noted that due to the conflict in the Middle East, Kiev had “moved to the background” for the Western community.