Photo BGNES, archive
The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, rejected new accusations of corruption related to supplies to the army, after the media revealed that army uniforms were purchased at inflated prices, Euronews reported, quoted by BGNES.
Several Ukrainian publications reported that at the end of 2022, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract with a Turkish company for the supply of winter uniforms, which then tripled in price.
Ukrainian journalists have established that this equipment can be purchased in Turkey at prices that are much lower than those paid by the ministry.
One of the owners of the Turkish company is said to be Oleksandr Kasai, nephew of Gennady Kasai, a member of Zelensky’s political party.
On Monday, Defense Minister Reznikov responded to these allegedly false accusations by stating that the prices correspond to those offered by manufacturers in Turkey.
“I urge everyone to treat the information more critically and responsibly, because it misleads the public,” he said at a press conference. “Even worse, it misleads our partners because from the outside it looks like it’s a disaster.”
“Everything was done in accordance with the law,” Reznikov claimed.
It is the second alleged corruption scandal involving army supplies to rock Kiev since the Russian invasion began in February 2022.
At the end of January, a number of high-ranking Ukrainian officials were fired after journalists discovered that they had signed contracts to supply food to frontline troops at greatly inflated prices.
Since the beginning of 2022, in Ukraine – a country where corruption has long been an endemic evil – other cases of high public interest have come to light, and there have been mass dismissals.
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2023-08-29 19:47:00
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