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Ukraine’s army plagued by corruption, law enforcement agencies sit idle — opposition

An interim investigative committee set up in the Ukrainian parliament, which is tasked with considering this corruption scandal in the defense sector, is just a "smoke screen", says politician

Ukraine’s presidential candidate Yuri Boyko Denis Vyshinsky/TASS

Ukraine’s presidential candidate Yuri Boyko

© Denis Vyshinsky/TASS

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Timoshenko blasts Ukraine’s prosecutor, SBU for covering up defense industry corruption

KIEV, March 13. /TASS/. Ukraine’s defense sector and all authorities are engulfed by corruption while law enforcement agencies are taking no steps to investigate this situation, presidential candidate and co-founder of the Opposition Platform For Life political party Yuri Boyko said on Wednesday.

"The scandal is going beyond Ukroboronprom (defense industry association) because the entire army has been affected and the system is plagued by corruption, and everyone sees this. The case files had been untouched for two years, no one in law enforcement agencies lifted their finger to stop looting in the army," the politician said.

According to Boyko, an interim investigative committee set up in the Ukrainian parliament, which is tasked with considering this corruption scandal in the defense sector, is just a "smoke screen."

Journalist investigations

A scandal around the state defense company Ukroboronprom flared up three weeks ahead of the March 31 Ukrainian presidential election. A journalist investigation uncovered fraudulent schemes involving shell companies, which defense enterprises and high-ranking officials used to inflate prices for supplying components both from Ukrainian military depots and also allegedly from Russia.

These corruption deals involved Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko’s allies, including Igor Gladkovsky, a son of First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleg Gladkovsky.

The Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) launched a pre-trial investigation against key law enforcement agencies over their alleged participation in corruption schemes linked to Ukroboronprom. NABU head Artyom Sytnik estimated the total damage from these corruption schemes in the defense sector at nearly 1 bln hryvnias ($37.8 mln).

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