Corruption Scandal: Is Ukraine Laundering EU Support Money?

Is Ukraine Laundering EU Support Money?

g.calder

Ukraine’s government has been rocked by a $100 million money-laundering and corruption scandal, just as the EU ponders further multi-billion support for Kyiv. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán says Brussels is “funding a wartime mafia” in Ukraine as the country’s justice and energy ministers resign over the probe. The Spectator says the investigation could even “bring down Volodymyr Zelensky” with some of his closest allies among the accused. Is Ukraine funnelling European taxpayer support through shell companies into private hands? 

On Thursday last week, Orbán said that emerging reports of corruption have “exposed” a “wartime mafia network with countless ties to President Volodomyr Zelensky”, adding: “it’s high time Brussels finally understood where their money is really going”.  

His damning social media statement read: 

“The golden illusion of Ukraine is falling apart. A wartime mafia network with countless ties to President Zelensky has been exposed. The energy minister has already resigned, and the main suspect has fled the country. This is the chaos into which the Brusselian elite want to pour European taxpayers’ money, where whatever isn’t shot off on the front lines ends up in the pockets of the war mafia. Madness.” 

Among others, Germany’s Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD, echoes the sentiment. Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, warned that “corruption is out of control in Ukraine, so it’s no surprise that no one has ever seen a clear accounting of how the EU funds were actually spent.” 

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