Corruption In Ukraine Remains A Major Problem

War is a dirty business. The war profiteers descend on these battlefields like vultures. There are no exceptions. Ask Bosnians. Ask Iraqis. Ask Syrians. Take your pick. Everything is for sale on the battlefield.  

That this type of war profiteering is happening in Ukraine should come as no surprise to anyone. By 1999 already, corrupt forces in Bosnia had plundered $1 billion in foreign aid money. Of course, that doesn’t compare to the magnitude of the corruption that went down in Iraq in the early 2000s. The Oil-for-Food scandal was corruption on a massive scale, and it was only one example. 

War is a business, and the business of war is going on in Ukraine. 

The over $62 billion in aid the Pentagon sent Ukraine in 2022 is a war profiteer’s dream, and there are varying voices in the U.S. government that have expressed concern about massive fraud and the potential for weapons and technology to end up in the wrong hands. 

The even bigger concern is that the American public may soften its stance on defending Ukraine against Russia because of this. The more corruption and contract fraud comes to light, the less American taxpayers are willing to foot the bill, and their idolization of Zelensky begins to show cracks.

Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times journalist of Watergate fame, Seymour Hersh, is frequently accused of spreading Russian propaganda for thinly sourced claims related to the war in Ukraine. Earlier this year, it was his allegation that the U.S. was responsible for the undersea explosions targeting the Nord Stream II pipeline. More recently, it is because of his claims of corruption in the war zone. In this case, the Pentagon is also worried and investigations are being conducted, looking at contract fraud and war profiteering in Kyiv. On this, pretty much everyone agrees: Ukraine was highly corrupt long before its even more corrupted neighbor invaded. It’s a given that foreign aid is lining someone’s pockets. From this perspective, the shock and awe over the level of war-time corruption seems misplaced. 

But there was something else Hersh mentioned in his subscription-generating blog. He cites an American intelligence source as saying that Ukraine is buying discounted Russian diesel to fuel its war and, as such, lining Putin’s pockets and also skimming from U.S. dollars intended to fund fuel purchases. This thinly sourced statement, however, skims over the complexities of a very nuanced war. It is not a statement that can exist without a deeper explanation–and that explanation takes the wind out of the sails of a very damaging allegation.

In 2022, Ukraine was purchasing tons of diesel from Bulgaria. That diesel was produced with Russian oil. In total, a journalistic investigation into these purchases showed that Bulgaria exported around $774 million in fuels (mostly red diesel)  to Ukraine. That figure represented a 1,000-fold increase in such exports from before the Russian invasion. Bulgaria’s only gas oil refinery is owned by Russian Lukoil, and Bulgaria is fully entitled to continue to operate this refinery with Russian oil because it has an exemption from EU sanctions. So, yes, essentially, Ukraine was buying “discounted Russian diesel”, but in a very indirect way and not in the brazen way described by Hersh’s unnamed intelligence source. All of this market activity is accepted by the EU. Bulgaria is allowed to export products produced from Russian oil to Ukraine. In January, the U.S. started exporting fuel to Ukraine, reducing this dependency. That is the nuance that is ignored in brief statements that can easily be misinterpreted by the American public.

Does learning that this isn’t the Disney version of war and that the side the West is fighting for is simply the lesser corrupt among the two parties mean we should soften support for Ukraine’s war effort?  Does learning that there may have been contract fraud along the chain from the U.S. to Ukraine mean we should withdraw and let Putin do as Putin will?

Absolutely not. 

The American military aid to Ukraine is not about saving the Ukrainian people. There is nothing altruistic about it. It’s about the wider threat to Europe, and to NATO. It’s about the consequences of allowing the Kremlin to simply steamroll its way across Europe.