Editor’s note: This is an article written in German by Berliner Zeitung. It’s been saved in English but just in case it’s not be sure to click English at the top of the article to read in full.
by Harald Neuber at Berliner Zeitung
Zelensky’s government sabotaged Western controls. Hundreds of millions of dollars disappeared without supervision. Now Ukraine is threatened with the loss of Western support.
A New York Times investigation accuses the Ukrainian government under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of systematically undermining independent control mechanisms. Western allies had made these oversight bodies a condition for billions in aid to prevent corruption in key state-owned companies.
According to the research, which is based on documents and interviews with about 20 Western and Ukrainian insiders, the Zelensky administration filled the so-called supervisory boards with loyalists, left seats vacant or delayed their establishment. Company bylaws were rewritten to limit control. This made it possible to spend hundreds of millions of dollars without external oversight.
State nuclear company in sight
At its center is the state-owned nuclear company Energoatom. Anti-corruption authorities accuse members of Zelensky’s inner circle of embezzling and laundering $100 million. The government blames the oversight board for the failure – in doing so, it itself deliberately limited its ability to act, as the NYT research shows.
The influence began even before the Russian invasion in 2022. Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, former head of the electricity grid operator Ukrenergo, reports pressure from Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko to appoint unqualified people to leadership positions. When Kudrytskyi resisted, he was eventually dismissed by a rigged vote on the supervisory board.