Fighting on Two Fronts: Zelensky Fights Corruption and Russia | News of the war between Russia and Ukraine

Kyiv, Ukraine – This has become the biggest political change in wartime Ukraine – and it does not seem to be over.

A slew of senior officials have resigned or been sacked since Sunday after a Ukrainian newspaper reported a corruption scheme involving food supplies for the army.

The scandal followed a breakthrough in Ukraine’s search for the military’s holy grail – some of the world’s most advanced tanks from Germany whose arrival on the front lines could change the war’s prospects.

Zn.ua reported last week that food prices mentioned in the Defense Ministry contract it was awarded were three times higher than in Kyiv supermarkets.

The headline read: “Defense Front Back Rats Steal More Food From Armed Forces Than Peacetime.”

Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov criticized the post, saying prices are higher because of the logistical ordeals involved in delivering goods to the front lines.

He kept his job, but heads are turning, and the list of fired officials is growing by the day.

It includes his deputy, deputy head of the presidential administration, three other deputy ministers, five governors and five prosecutors in their regions, and two heads of government agencies.

Six of them were allegedly involved in corruption, according to media reports and anti-corruption authorities.

The media speculated that three more ministers and even Prime Minister Dennis Schmiehal might get pink slips.

“I want it to be clear — things will never be the same again,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a televised address Sunday, pledging a zero-tolerance approach to graft.

After the dismissals began, Ukraine scored one of its biggest breakthroughs on the battlefield: Germany agreed to supply its advanced Leopard 2 battle tanks.

After months of refusal, resistance and deliberation, German Chancellor Olaf Schultz pledged on Tuesday to provide 14 tanks and to allow other European countries that have them to deliver them to Kyiv.

The Panthers weigh over 60 tons, fire 120mm shells and have two 7.62mm machine guns, one of which can hit aircraft.

Germany has sold hundreds of Leopard 2s to more than a dozen European countries as well as Canada and Indonesia. They have been involved in conflicts from Kosovo to Syria.

Both Ukraine and Russia have used Soviet-designed tanks in the current war, which began in February.

Kyiv had pleaded for months to get the Leopards and other Western tanks and armored vehicles, arguing they could be game-changers in Europe’s worst armed conflict since World War Two.

Ukraine’s supreme commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, reportedly said in December that he needed 300 tanks, 600 to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 howitzers to push Russian forces back to Ukraine’s pre-war borders.

potential connection

For an observer with extensive knowledge of both German and Ukrainian politics, there is no coincidence between the firing of Ukrainian officials and Germany’s pledge of tanks.

“This explosion [of dismissals] “It’s surprising and very methodical at the same time,” Nikolai Mitrokhin, a historian at Germany’s University of Bremen, told Al Jazeera.

He said German officials may have given their Ukrainian counterparts an ultimatum during the January 20 talks of Ukraine’s allies at the Ramstein military base in Germany.

Dozens of countries pledged to boost their military aid to Ukraine at those talks, but Germany said it would ban the tanks, shocking allies in Kyiv and Berlin.

And then, the Ukrainian elites fell into a sudden, powerful jolt triggered by only one [newspaper] Mitrokhin said.

“Now everything is different,” said Mitrokhin. “The main owners of tanks and their producers have come to a serious agreement, in addition, the United States, which has refused to supply tanks for unknown reasons, is really reconsidering its decision.”

On Tuesday, Washington also agreed to supply its M1 Abrams tanks and to increase production of heavy artillery shells sixfold.

The tanks outperform Leopard 2s slightly but require constant maintenance and typically run on jet fuel, not diesel like other tanks. Their crew also needs extensive training.

“And since the Germans like to tie different matters together into one big decision, one cannot rule out that the package included the elimination of corruption in the army and in the humanitarian committees,” said Mitrokhin.

But Ukrainian critics disagree with this view.

“There are two reasons [for the dismissals] – Either ineffectiveness or suspected corruption,” Igar Tishkevich, a Kyiv-based analyst, told Al Jazeera.

The dismissals had nothing to do with tanks, said the former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Once convicted, the corrupt officials “should face a much harsher punishment. There should be a swift investigation,” Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko told Al Jazeera.

Alexei Koch, a Kyiv-based analyst, told Al Jazeera that the dismissals were “spurred by the need to strengthen management effectiveness and eliminate ‘points of corruption’ during the war.”

Especially since there is a demand for it within [Ukrainian] From the public and from Western partners.

Cautiously, some Ukrainian soldiers warn that food sent by the Western allies is occasionally stolen and ends up in civilian stores.

“You get a new batch of humanitarian aid and after two days you see the same boxes with the same logos in a nearby supermarket,” one of the soldiers told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

But the ongoing scandal is by far not the first in Ukraine.

Ukroboronprom, a group of state-run arms manufacturers that was mired in corruption, is undergoing serious reforms to increase transparency and accountability in its subsidiaries.

And in 2019, an investigative report described how the son of President Petro Poroshenko’s childhood friend and ally, Oleh Hladkovsky, organized a scheme to smuggle used military components out of Russia and sell them to the Ukrainian military at two or even three times the price.

The scandal led to public outcry and affected Poroshenko’s popularity ahead of the presidential elections that year.

Zelensky, a popular comedian with no political background, won the election, promising to eradicate corruption.