[REGNUM] President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky held a meeting of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in a new format for the first time. A few hours earlier, a number of sources reported that the United States was demanding the resignation of Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov.
A few days ago, in his traditional evening address to the citizens of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a new format for the meeting of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander. The events that unfolded after this raised the question of who will control the defense department of Ukraine in the current wartime.
“Today I held a meeting of the Headquarters, for the first time - in a double format. First - the traditional full composition of the Headquarters. (...) And then, in the afternoon, an additional meeting of the Stavka members in a narrow format. For a particularly weighty conversation,” the President of Ukraine said.
What kind of "weighty conversation," the head of the Ukrainian state did not say. But a few hours before, one of the popular telegram channels in the country shared an insider:
"Our source in the OP (Office of the President – Ed.) said that today the US ambassador to Ukraine demanded that Zelensky fire Reznikov, the West demands a complete reformatting of the Ministry of Defense."
Later, the same channel "Resident" reported that Zelensky's Office did not expect such severe pressure from the United States:
"Now, the main fight is for the Minister of Defense, whom the United States is demanding to be fired and replaced with the man Zaluzhny (Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – Ed.), which does not suit Andriy Yermak (Head of the President’s Office – Ed.)."
All this could be considered idle fantasies, if not for a series of events on February 2, which testify to the feverish attempts of the Ukrainian authorities to extinguish corruption scandals in the Ministry of Defense.
Bogdan Khmelnitsky 2.0
Bogdan Khmelnitsky was a Zaporozhe Cossack leader of some note from the 17th century.
On Thursday, February 2, the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation announced the arrest of a criminal group of five people, which included representatives of enterprises - food suppliers and the military, who are responsible for providing one of the military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"The amount of established losses to the state from the activities of this group currently reaches more than 4.6 million hryvnia (8.8 million rubles). The “saved” funds that the Ministry of Defense transferred to the accounts of the enterprise were divided between the participants in the scheme," the press service of the State Bureau of Investigation reported.
According to the press service, the attackers, among other things, “supplied eggs at inflated prices to the Ministry of Defense,” and also came up with other schemes for misappropriation of funds.
During the searches, notes, illegal weapons, ammunition, explosive devices, as well as more than 1 million hryvnias (about 1.9 million rubles) in cash were confiscated from the detainees.
Many Ukrainian media presented this information as news about the arrest of the defendants in the scheme, about which Zerkalo Nedeli wrote on January 21. Then the journalist and founder of the Nashi Groshi (Our Money) project Yuriy Nikolov published a copy of the agreement concluded by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on December 23, 2022. The document concerned catering services in 2023 for military units deployed in the Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv and Cherkasy regions.
For comparison, Nikolov chose the popular Silpo chain of stores in a residential area of Kyiv. The prices for the most popular products turned out to be overestimated by two or three times. Most of all, Ukrainians were outraged by the price of eggs: according to the contract, they were purchased for 17 hryvnias (about 31.6 rubles) apiece, while the retail price at the time of publication was about 7 hryvnias (about 13 rubles).
In general, the cost of services in the document was estimated at 13.16 billion hryvnia (about 24 billion rubles).
The "icing on the cake" was that on behalf of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the document was signed by Bogdan Khmelnitsky. That is the name of the director of the public procurement department, whose house was searched in the summer in connection with the theft in the supply of ammunition.
In March, when the fighting was already in full swing, Khmelnitsky signed a contract for the supply of body armor with a Turkish company. She, in turn, must receive them from a company from Bahrain. The Ministry of Defense paid an advance of $580,000, but never received the body armor.
Khmelnytsky not only did not lose his post, but also signed a new dubious document.
A scandal erupted both in Ukraine and abroad.
"HANG ON THE POLES"
The Ukrainian society was outraged that even during the most difficult hostilities, the corruption machine continues to exist as if nothing had happened.
So, for example, the commander of the nationalist battalion "Freedom" Pyotr Kuzik , whose unit is now fighting in Artyomovsk (Ukrainian Bakhmut), said in an interview:
"…it's just the bottom. If they are scum there, they get so turbid when the guys here fight like that, then it will be necessary after the war - before the war we decided that we would not go into politics - but after the war it will be necessary to hang on poles every scum that got in our hands ... this is looting during the war. (...) Here the lads shed blood, and you earn millions for yourself?! It won't. Not 2014."
The reaction of Minister of Defense Reznikov caused particular indignation: instead of sorting out the scandalous purchases, he began to threaten journalists with the Security Service of Ukraine. At the same time, he stated that there was an error in converting kilograms into pieces and noted that the person responsible for this error was fired in December.
The situation was aggravated by tough, if not brutal mobilization. Social networks are full of videos of men, sometimes with the use of brute force, taken to mobilization points.
As a result, the president of Ukraine was forced to promise purges, and the people's deputies summoned the minister of defense to parliament.
Demonstrative high-profile searches swept across the country. The security forces visited the tax and customs services, former officials, including the once all-powerful head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov , and even the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.
Suspicions of corruption were brought against ex-deputy defense minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov , ex-deputy head of the Promoboronexport state enterprise Vladimir Tereshchenko , and ex-head of the public procurement department Khmelnitsky - the very one who signed the scandalous documents.
But polite visits to former major figures and suspicions of former deputies did not satisfy the public. Moreover, in the case of inflating food prices, those arrested on February 2 are charged with losses of 4.6 million, while the journalistic investigation dealt with more than 13 billion. Fortunately, this is not the first case when high-profile corruption scandals end in nothing.
On the same February 2, the Ukrayinska Pravda publication published a video of the August searches in the body armor case: investigators took out hryvnias, dollars and euros worth almost $ 1 million from the sofa of ex-deputy defense minister Oleksandr Mironyuk . But after a while, everything was returned to Mironyuk: the court satisfied the explanation official that the money was lent to him by an 86-year-old resident of Kharkov.
You do not need to have any special insider knowledge to understand that corruption of this magnitude in the Ministry of Defense was possible only with the connivance of the leadership of the department.
But Minister Reznikov demonstrates calmness: at a meeting with European commissioners, he demands weapons as if nothing had happened. And if yesterday the head of the Servant of the People faction in the Rada, David Arakhamia , stated that Reznikov's resignation was a settled matter, today he says that no reshuffles are expected in the Ministry of Defense this week. Reznikov himself also states that he knows nothing about the resignation.
It is clear that the behind-the-scenes struggle for the key post of the head of the military department continues in Zelensky's entourage, but the decisive word will certainly remain with the Americans.
"CRITICAL MONTHS"
The US authorities are now going through difficult times: the passions around the secret documents that "by mistake" got into the house of President Joe Biden did not have time to subside , when a Chinese balloon arrived. And of course, Ukraine does not let us forget about itself.
The amount of aid allocated by Washington to Kyiv since the beginning of the special operation has already exceeded $29.3 billion. The wing of the Republican Party, focused on Donald Trump, does not tire of reminding that this money would be useful to the Americans themselves.
“Congress does not check where your taxes go. Billions of dollars sent to Ukraine. Crazy, but in Washington it doesn't bother anyone," popular Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson expresses the mood of this part of the society . The TV presenter calls the Zelensky regime "the most corrupt in Europe" and says that America has better things to do," than sending more money to Zelensky."
But Democrats and Republican hawks are worried about something else.
On February 2, CIA Director William Burns said Ukraine was facing "critical months."
The day before, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov said in an interview with Sky News: "Will [Russia] come from all sides? Today, I can say that we do not exclude any development of events in the next two to three weeks."
On February 2, Bloomberg, citing unnamed high-ranking Western officials , reported that in February-March, that is, before Ukraine receives new Western equipment, a large-scale offensive by the Russian army in the Donbass should be expected.
Meanwhile, The New York Times, talking about the losses of the Russian Armed Forces, notes that things are not going so smoothly in Ukraine either, illustrating this thesis with a photograph from the Ukrainian cemetery. "In Bakhmut, according to officials, hundreds of Ukrainian servicemen are injured or killed every day," the publication reported.
In such circumstances - on the eve of a possible offensive and against the backdrop of heavy losses - the Minister of Defense either covering up or not noticing corruption in his department is "an unaffordable luxury."
After all, if the Ukrainian front crumbles and, as a result, Kyiv is forced to make concessions, the American taxpayers will have a natural question: what was the point of allocating billions to a government that is not able to cleanse itself of corruption even in moments that are fatal for this very government.
And here the Biden administration will also recall the fruitless injections into Afghanistan. But on the nose are elections, for which, according to the American media, the incumbent president has already begun to prepare.