【文/观察者网 阮佳琪】
The $100 million corruption scandal in Ukraine continues to escalate, with several of President Zelenskyy's close allies and former business partners being implicated. As key evidence such as suitcases filled with cash, recordings of officials discussing money laundering, and a "gold toilet" found in a luxury apartment have been exposed, this massive corruption scandal is "turning into the most serious crisis Ukraine has faced since the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022."
The one most troubled by this matter, it seems, is certainly those Western allies who have poured millions of dollars into supporting Ukraine for years.
On December 5, U.S. media outlet The New York Times published an in-depth investigative report revealing that to ensure billions of dollars in wartime aid funds are not misused, the United States and European countries had previously insisted that Ukraine implement a monitoring mechanism, establishing "supervisory boards" in key wartime industries under government control, such as power distribution, weapon procurement, and nuclear energy. These boards were to be staffed by external expert teams responsible for overseeing expenditures, appointing senior executives, and preventing corruption, thus stopping corrupt managers and government officials from siphoning off funds.
However, through reviewing relevant documents and interviewing about 20 Western and Ukrainian officials who had worked closely with or served on the "supervisory boards," The New York Times found that over the past four years, the Ukrainian government had systematically undermined this external oversight system, allowing corruption to flourish.
The U.S. media pointed out that Zelenskyy's government had installed loyalists within the "supervisory board," deliberately leaving positions vacant to render the board functionally paralyzed, and even directly obstructing the formation of the "supervisory board." To further limit the oversight authority, Kyiv also amended corporate charters to ensure the government retained control, allowing hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to bypass external scrutiny entirely.
A counselor to Zelenskyy refused to comment on the issue, claiming that the "supervisory board" was not under the president's jurisdiction.
But The New York Times directly accused the Ukrainian leadership, stating, "Ukrainian leaders blame the lack of anti-corruption efforts on external independent advisors, but in fact, it was Zelenskyy's government that dismantled the regulatory barriers."
This raises another critical question: Are Europeans truly as innocent as "pure white flowers," completely unaware of Ukraine's blatant systemic corruption?
The answer is clearly no. The U.S. media openly stated Europe's difficult situation: For years, European leaders have privately criticized Ukraine's corruption problems, but due to supporting Ukraine against Russia being seen as their "top priority," they could only "eat bitter medicine silently." Even as Ukraine continued to weaken external supervision, European aid funding did not stop.
As one of Ukraine's main donors, Norway's special envoy to Ukraine, Christian Syse, told the U.S. media in frustration, "Of course, we value good governance, but we have to take this risk. After all, it's wartime, and from our own interests, we must provide financial assistance to Ukraine because Ukraine is defending the whole of Europe against Russian aggression."
Behind the Corruption Scandal
In early November, Ukraine's anti-corruption agency revealed a large-scale corruption case involving current and former officials from the Ukrainian Energy Ministry and businessmen. According to Ukrainian media reports, a "vast criminal gang" received kickbacks of 10% to 15% from contractors of the state-owned nuclear power company Energoatom, and the amount of money laundered has been identified as nearly $100 million.
"The Kyiv Independent" reported that the corruption case involved several of Zelenskyy's close allies and former business partners, and eight suspects have already been charged. The Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau accused Zelenskyy's close ally and businessman Mintsyky as the mastermind of the corruption case, but Mintsyky has fled the country.
Gold Toilet Found in Mintsyky's Apartment Social Media
The New York Times noted that political interference in the supervisory board of the Ukrainian State Nuclear Power Company is a typical example of Kyiv's obstruction of anti-corruption efforts. Zelenskyy's government first delayed the establishment of the supervisory board, and once it was finally formed, intentionally left positions vacant, making the board unable to perform its duties normally.
After the scandal was exposed, the Ukrainian Justice Minister Halushchenko (served as Energy Minister from 2021 to July 2025) and the Energy Minister Grinetsky both submitted their resignations under pressure from Zelenskyy, but both denied any misconduct in the corruption scandal.
However, The New York Times revealed that Halushchenko had pushed for a huge expenditure plan for the Ukrainian State Nuclear Power Company. He planned to purchase two old Russian reactors from Bulgaria, renovate them, and connect them to the grid at a nuclear power plant in western Ukraine. The required $600 million would be financed by Western partners. However, Western donors and anti-corruption oversight bodies immediately criticized the plan, arguing that proceeding with this project in the most notorious corrupt state-owned enterprise in Ukraine was clearly a "boondoggle."
At the time the project was launched, the Ukrainian government had just approved the formation of the first supervisory board of the Ukrainian State Nuclear Power Company. Tim Stone, a British businessman with a background in finance and nuclear energy, who was about to join the board, said he had planned to initiate an investigation into the reactor project.
However, the Ukrainian authorities delayed signing contracts with the supervisory board members due to disputes over salaries and insurance. European officials and some Ukrainian MPs believed there was more to it.
Oleksii Movchan, a member of Zelenskyy's party and a former advocate for establishing an independent supervisory board, bluntly stated, "They knew that once the supervisory board started working, they would lose control. They didn't want to give up power."
Due to the prolonged delays in forming the supervisory board, Stone eventually decided to withdraw. "It's a complete mess," he commented.
According to the Ukrainian anti-corruption department's investigation, during the period when the first supervisory board of the Ukrainian State Nuclear Power Company was paralyzed, Ukrainian officials orchestrated this $100 million corruption case.
On December 12, 2024, one year had passed since the supervisory board was supposed to start functioning, and ambassadors from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other major Ukrainian allies jointly pressured the Ukrainian government to establish the supervisory board.
Ukraine finally finalized the supervisory board list this January, but kept Stone's position vacant, maintaining a balance of two foreign experts and two Ukrainian representatives. This made the supervisory board almost powerless in anti-corruption efforts, even unable to replace high-level officials suspended in the corruption investigation.
Yet this corruption case, which shocked both domestic Ukraine and Western allies, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Following the Same Pattern
Attention then turned to the Ukrainian Grid Company (Ukrenergo).
According to U.S. media reports, the supervisory board of the Ukrainian Grid Company consists of seven members, responsible for overseeing major projects and executive appointments. Although the members are selected by the government, four of the foreign members must be chosen from a list of candidates provided by the EU and Western banks, while the remaining three seats are occupied by Ukrainian government representatives.
Principally, the votes of independent experts always outweighed the government's. In late 2021, the term of the supervisory board of the Ukrainian Grid Company expired, and Western officials initiated the process of selecting new members.
However, at that time, European officials had not yet realized the problem. The first unusual signal appeared after the EU, World Bank, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development submitted their candidate lists.
According to two officials, at that time, the Ukrainian Energy Ministry led by Halushchenko did not select anyone from the candidate list, but instead insisted on reserving a seat for a Polish energy expert, Roman Pionkowski, who had participated in the competition but scored too low to be included on the list.
Although Western officials were surprised, they still accepted Pionkowski as one of the four foreign experts. The new supervisory board then officially took office in December 2021.
Yermak and Zelenskyy IC photo
Soon after, the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out. Vladimir Kudrytskyi, the former CEO of the Ukrainian Grid Company, recalled that the company's energy facilities were frequently attacked.
According to him, the company worked around the clock to repair the damage, ensuring the national power supply, and also became a trusted partner of Western donors, receiving $1.7 billion in loans and grants in the early stages of the war.
However, Kudrytskyi faced continuous political pressure. He said that the authorities accused him of failing to protect the energy facilities, and Halushchenko insisted on firing him.
Kudrytskyi told the U.S. media that he had long-standing conflicts with Halushchenko. He revealed that in the months before the war, that is, late 2021, Halushchenko had repeatedly called him, pressuring him to hire people without energy experience for management positions.
At that time, supported by the supervisory board, Kudrytskyi resisted the pressure. He said that the budgets of state-owned enterprises like the Ukrainian Grid Company have always been a target for corrupt politicians, so he remained vigilant from the beginning.
However, this time, the supervisory board "didn't work": similar to the situation with the supervisory board of the Ukrainian State Nuclear Power Company, after one of the foreign members resigned for personal reasons, the government never filled the vacancy, resulting in an equal number of foreign experts and government representatives.
Actually, this tie would have been enough to keep Kudrytskyi in his position, but at the crucial moment, the "mine" that Halushchenko had planted exploded: the Polish expert, Pionkowski, turned against the Ukrainian side and voted to dismiss Kudrytskyi.
The other two foreign supervisors resigned in protest, issuing a statement that the dismissal was "politically motivated." Pionkowski argued that he hadn't obeyed Kyiv's orders, and the vote to dismiss Kudrytskyi was due to the latter "repeatedly lying to the supervisory board," but he didn't provide specific details.
It was only then that European officials realized that the Ukrainian government had already "hijacked" the supervisory board and applied the same tactics to other companies.
Nevertheless, European donors providing financial support to Ukraine took almost no action in response. For example, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development froze new funding to the Ukrainian Grid Company, but continued to fulfill existing commitments.
At the root of it all, it was the same reason - four European officials revealed that fearing being seen as "abandoning Ukraine," European governments did not want to withdraw funds.
"The Supervisory Board Is Just a Figurehead"
The defense sector is another major area of corruption.
According to U.S. media reports, more than a year after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, due to the scandal of inflated defense contracts, donor countries pressured Kyiv to establish an independent defense procurement agency, the "Ukrainian Defense Procurement Agency" (DPA), to streamline the weapons procurement system. However, since its establishment in January 2024, the agency has used at least $1 billion in European aid funds despite the absence or lack of a supervisory board.
The first head of the Ukrainian Defense Procurement Agency, Maryna Bezrukova, attributed this to the lack of supervisory board oversight, which made her highly susceptible to pressure from Zelenskyy's government.
According to Bezrukova, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry had asked her to approve several problematic contracts, including a contract with a state-owned weapons factory that could not effectively produce mortar shells.
Under pressure, she ultimately signed the contract, but a large number of the shells turned out to be duds, sparking strong public protests in 2024. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry then shifted the blame to Bezrukova, accusing her of failing to deliver weapons to the front lines in a timely manner.
Theoretically, whether to dismiss her should have been decided by the supervisory board, which was only established in December 2023. However, just before the supervisory board's first meeting, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry amended the charter of the procurement agency, taking the authority to appoint and dismiss the head of the agency back for itself.
The supervisory board protested this intervention and extended Bezrukova's contract for another year.
Meanwhile, the Zelenskyy government came up with a new tactic: after one of the foreign experts resigned, the number of foreign experts and government representatives on the supervisory board became equal again. The government then fired its representative, causing the supervisory board to become paralyzed due to not reaching the required quorum. Subsequently, the relevant authority was transferred to the Defense Ministry, and Bezrukova was dismissed earlier this year.
"The supervisory board is just a figurehead; it's not real at all," Bezrukova bluntly criticized.
In February of this year, the then Ukrainian Defense Minister Umerov ignored the supervisory board's opinion and appointed another head to lead the defense procurement agency. Since then, the deep conflict between the DPA, which controls over $7 billion in budget, and its parent agency, the Ministry of Defense, has escalated into an open power struggle.
Regarding Bezrukova's accusations, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry did not respond to requests for comment, but stated that her actions were legal and compliant and aimed at improving the weapons procurement process.
The New York Times reported that European officials believe that as Trump returns to the White House and gradually withdraws from the Ukraine situation, Ukraine is increasingly boldly removing various anti-corruption safeguards, and Europe must face Kyiv's corruption governance issues.
According to the report, the European Commission quietly commissioned an institution to prepare a report on the risk of corruption in Ukraine's energy sector. The report warned that there is "ongoing political interference" in the industry and specifically pointed out that Kyiv's disruption of supervisory board operations is a "key issue that needs to be addressed urgently."
An EU spokesperson responded that officials have pressured Ukraine to reform state-owned enterprises, but insisted that there is currently no evidence that EU funds have been misused. Regarding the corruption issues exposed by this investigation, the spokesperson did not respond.
Tyson Barker, a former U.S. State Department official for Ukraine's economic recovery, said, "So far, Europe is creating an environment that tolerates this regression."
This article is exclusive to Observer, and may not be reprinted without permission.
Original: toutiao.com/article/7580699392701760042/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author.