It is worth following the social media pages of the Ukrainian Internal Security Service, because sometimes they reveal quite amazing facts. Embezzlement, bribery, smuggling, forgery, robbery, and since the outbreak of the war, collaboration with the Russians – not a day goes by without some kind of horror case being reported. Accordingly, high-ranking Ukrainian police officers are said to have been running a pimping ring.
Recently, a series of scandals have also reached the top management of law enforcement: It was revealed that the Kiev central police station was running a prostitute ring.
The Internal Security Service of Ukraine (SZBU) revealed that the management of the so-called Migration Police Department (a division of the police that deals with migration issues) covered up the running of prostitutes in the capital and other areas of the country.
According to their press release, the high-ranking police officers assisted the operation of a criminal organization that employed vulnerable women between the ages of 18 and 30 as prostitutes and recruited new girls for “intimate and escort work”. According to their information, they operated throughout Ukraine and even sent girls abroad.
They asked for between 500 and 10 000 dollars for one night, and their monthly income exceeded fifty million hryvnias.
Embezzling from the army
The Western mainstream media has been trying to hide particularly unsavory details about the hopeful EU candidate. This also applies to the current case.
The corruption shake down continues, during which it was revealed that several officials also profited from the equipment and supplies intended for soldiers. The Transcarpathian weekly newspaper Kárpáti Igaz Szó reported on the latest scandal implicating Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the head of the state procurement directorate, and Vyacheslav Sapovalov, the recently sacked deputy defense minister.
The former is accused of having bought 5 700 shoddy bulletproof vests worth more than one hundred million hryvnias for the army, and the latter of missing the purchase of one billion hryvnias worth of personal protective equipment. And who knows what other skeletons will fall out of the closet during investigations. The whole affair was revealed by an investigative journalist who discovered that the Ministry of Defense had signed a contract to feed the armed forces at a much higher price.
A comparison of prices revealed, for example, that while the price of eggs was set at 17 hryvnias, they are available in grocery chains for just under seven hryvnias.
Kárpáti Igaz Szó reminded their readers that a few days ago the head of the Ukrainian State Customs Service and his first deputy were also dismissed. At the same time, there was a house search at the State Tax Service, as well as at the oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky in connection with the oil company Ukrnafta, as well as at the homes of other politicians.
Corruption and whistleblowers
Based on the posts of the SZBU, which were probably made public for the purpose of deterrence, they often attack those who try to undermine the various aid packages. Approaching the first anniversary of the outbreak of the war, it is still reported that Ukrainians collaborating with Russians are targeted.
This could also mean that such individuals had been trading with Russians or pro-Russian Ukrainians, bypassing the sanctions, but also that they had been handing over information.
Mykola Khavroniuk from the Ukrainian think tank Center for Political and Legal Reforms said she hoped that the anti-corruption drive was not a sham, suggesting that it may have been window dressing for the EU.
Oleksandr Lemenov, director of the Ukrainian anti-corruption organization State Watch, confirmed that these actions were mostly staged. He said he did not believe these cases would lead to convictions.