President Acts to Guarantee Openness in Defense Ministry's Procurement Process

Since the beginning of the year, a corruption scandal in the Ministry of Defense has been raging in the space. The publication of articles, by the investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov, led to the dismissal of senior officials and the start of anti-corruption investigations. He managed to obtain a copy of one of the contracts worth more than UAH 13 billion, for food supplied to the Ukrainian army, between a private company and the Ministry of Defense. It was only one of 8 contracts for food that the Ministry of Defense signed in December 2022 for the whole of 2023.  In an exclusive interview with KyivPost, Nikolov explained that his source had links to the military and was one of the first to see this contract which was signed at the end of December and came into force in February.   "After the holidays, my source received it, looked at it and saw the numbers involved. He handed me a copy with the words: "Look at the food prices in the contract, and then at the contract volume."  I printed out the prices in the contract which include potatoes for UAH 22, eggs for UAH 17 and cabbage for UAH 30. I took a copy of the contracts with me to the nearest Varus store and began to compare prices. I soon realized they the contract prices were three times more expensive than the same products in the store; UAH 22 for potatoes compared with seven in the store.