This is according to Piotr Kulpa, a former Polish deputy minister who is now a political commentator. He previously served as Poland’s deputy labor minister and is a supporter of President-elect Trump.
He claims that American aid programs are nothing more than a way to “write off large sums of money that finance shady systems under the Democratic Party’s control,” and he thinks that the new Trump administration may end up discovering that “Ukraine got very little” compared to what was publicly stated when they take office and look over government finances.
He added: “But they will also find something else: that a huge portion of the funds was stolen in Ukraine. From 30% to 50%, regardless of the nature of the aid.”
Just how much money didn’t make its way to Ukraine? According to Kulpa, the country could have enough to satisfy its budget for a year. He also called out senior Ukrainian officials for their unreasonably high salaries and bonuses.
“It’s a spit in the face of every Ukrainian,” the former minister asserted. “To every European and American taxpayer. This system is criminal from start to finish,” he said.
DoD watchdog report warned about corruption in Ukraine
The Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General recently issued a warning about corruption in Ukraine, with bribes, inflated procurement costs and kickbacks just some of the problems they are encountering. The warning came in their second quarterly report to Congress about the U.S.’s operation to provide Ukraine with weapons.
“Judges, politicians, and officials have been charged with corruption and the Ministry of Defense has been a key player in many corruption scandals,” the report said.
Inspector General Robert Storch said that they are committed to thorough oversight of how American taxpayer resources are being used to support Ukraine.
The report noted that the Ukrainian government “has undertaken efforts to counter public corruption, but it continues to confront obstacles to transparency.”
It was released just weeks after Biden’s supplemental funding request was passed by Congress, which includes $61 billion worth of military aid for Kiev.
Although it is difficult to estimate the extent of the corruption that is taking place there, we do know that there were 62 open investigations into Ukrainian corruption as of March 31, including corruption, program irregularities, theft, counterproliferation of technology of weapons system components, and procurement and grant fraud. Roughly half of the investigations involved diverted aid.
Meanwhile, a Pentagon audit released in January found that the U.S. failed to track more than $1 billion worth of military gear and weapons that were given to Ukraine, rendering 59% of the defense gear provided by the U.S. to Kiev “delinquent” despite directions from the U.S. that they guard them against theft and misuse.
The report noted that the DoD failed to keep an accurate inventory of the serial numbers of these defense items. End-use monitoring was required for gear containing sensitive technology that is smaller and therefore more susceptible to arms trafficking.
Sources for this article include:
RT.com
WashingtonExaminer.com
APNews.com
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