US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that Washington has a clear plan to fight corruption in Ukraine.
What is known about the US plan to fight corruption in Ukraine
Blinken stressed that the critical issue is to guarantee further assistance to Ukraine on its path to self-sufficiency.
We are working to deepen democratic reforms to help Ukraine overcome corruption, which is essential for investment and for Ukraine to become a strong democratic state, the head of the State Department stressed.
To ensure that Ukraine can develop even in times of war, the United States will mobilise countries around the world to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine deter and combat Russian aggression.
What the Ukrainian military says about corruption in the Armed Forces
The Wall Street Journal, citing the Ukrainian army in an article, reports on corruption cases during the deployment of soldiers to the front line.
For example, according to one of the Ukrainian soldiers with the call sign "Dubok", who is currently serving in one of the infantry units on the front line, he was offered a job as a technical worker in the rear in return for a bribe.
As a result, Dubok serves in the 47th Mechanised Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and defends Avdiivka. This section of the Ukrainian frontline is considered the most intense fighting. Dubok admits that he is physically unable to cope with combat missions, as he is no longer in his 20s.
Today, as a soldier, he is an experienced marksman, but he was forced into the army at 47.
One day, he had just gone out to get a haircut and fell into the hands of three military commissars.
He was ordered to get into a car and held in a dark room at a local recruitment centre for two days until he signed the summons, the newspaper reported.
According to the soldier himself, the need for military service did not scare him, but he did not want to join the army this way.
Currently, Ukraine is critically short of infantry in the army: it is the main offensive force, and it is predictably the one that loses the most people in combat. The Ukrainians most motivated to defend their homeland joined the army a long time ago: some died, some continue to fight, but the troops are "exhausted" and need to be rotated.
Ukraine relies on conscription and the mobilisation of new "resources" to keep the frontline from faltering from painful losses. Still, the current conscription system's very nature does not allow this to be done effectively.
The publication notes that a significant proportion of Ukrainian men of conscription age remain protected from mobilisation due to the possibility of bribes, benefits and political caution of the Ukrainian authorities.
Along the frontline, a disproportionate share of recruits are middle-aged men like Dubok. They often join the army from villages and small towns because they were too "poor" to buy a "white ticket" to the front, the authors of the article emphasise.
At the same time, "strong" veteran soldiers who have been confronting Russia since the beginning of the full-scale war, and in some places since 2014, agree that physically, this "mobilisation force" does not meet the expectations placed on it.
