Ukraine's security service found corruption in a military arms purchase worth around $40 million. The SBU is looking into five important people in the defence ministry and a company that provides weapons. The military signed a deal for 100,000 mortar shells in August 2022. The money was paid early and some of it was sent to another country, but no weapons were given.

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Corruption has been a big problem for Ukraine in trying to join the European Union. The SBU found that officials from the ministry of defense and managers of arms supplier Lviv Arsenal stole almost 1. 5 billion hryvnias when buying shells. The investigation found that ex and current big leaders of the Ministry of Defence and bosses of related companies are part of the stealing of money.

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The SBU said that even though the contract for the shells was agreed six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, they never sent any artillery shell. The police caught one of the suspects trying to leave Ukraine and they are now in jail. The prosecutor general of Ukraine has recovered the stolen money and will give it back to the defense budget. Ukraine has had a lot of problems with corruption for a long time.

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When Volodymyr Zelensky became President of Ukraine in 2019, he said that stopping corruption was one of the most important things he wanted to work on. The new claims are happening while Republicans in the US are against President Joe Biden's plan to give more help to Ukraine. In August, President Zelensky removed all the people in charge of military recruitment to stop some people from avoiding being drafted into the military.

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Ukraine was listed as the 116th least corrupt out of 180 countries in a 2022 index by Transparency International. However, actions to stop corruption are starting to have an impact. It is among the top 10 countries rising in Transparency International's ranking, climbing 28 places in 10 years.

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