The sad truth is that corruption issues have been reported since BEFORE the Ukraine/Russian War….
They just do NOT seem to go away….(Reports put the costs at OVER One Billion US dollars)
They due affect the Ukraine’s solders in the field….
A former British MI-6 head seems to be right on the spot….
Despite Trump’s guys visit and talk from Zelensky?
Putin is NOT gonna stop fighting anytime soon…
He believe’s his military stories that they ARE Winning when it appears they are NOT….
Trump has NO love for Zelensky and Europe….
Sooooo?
He’s not serious about an end to things….
One wonders what influence the new American Congress will have on things?
NY Times….
As Russian soldiers attacked trench lines in eastern Ukraine in 2024, Ukrainian artillery crews opened fire. But the rounds, instead of exploding near the advancing troops, flopped out of launch tubes or landed with quiet thumps, kicking up puffs of dust.
A Ukrainian arms factory, it turned out, had supplied the military with thousands of defective mortar rounds. A burly weapons factory boss, Leonid Shyman, would eventually be arrested and charged in one of the war’s most public examples of defense-industry fraud.
But even as the officials noticed that weapons were arriving faulty, government audits obtained by The New York Times show, Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency continued to award Mr. Shyman’s factory new contracts.
The case reflects a persistent phenomenon of the war in Ukraine. Seven of Ukraine’s top 10 military contractors won new business despite open criminal investigations for fraud, failures to deliver on earlier deals or the arrest of chief executives for corruption, according to the government audits obtained by The Times, court records and Ukrainian news accounts.
Mr. Shyman, for example, had been the subject of multiple investigations by anti-corruption agencies, including for embezzlement and fraud, when he won that first mortar contract. The government awarded the $280 million deal while he was out on bail on corruption charges.
Confidential reviews by the State Audit Service and an internal Ministry of Defense auditing department reveal a military procurement system riddled with mismanagement. Warning signs go unheeded, the records show, and there are seldom consequences for overcharging or failing to deliver.
Companies won contracts without demonstrating that they could supply the weapons, or without licenses to deliver them. Auditors identified 18 companies that signed deals despite defaulting on previous agreements. Six of those companies failed to fulfill a single contract.
Military contractors around the globe, including the world’s richest arms dealer as well as Ukrainian and American companies, have gotten wealthy through this system.
The internal government audits showed that in 2024 alone, Ukraine lost about $1.2 billion to fraud, waste and mismanagement….
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Mr. Zelensky has failed to clean up the procurement system, and the problems have reached into his inner circle. Last year, corruption investigators secretly recorded his former business partner urging officials to buy armored vests that had failed safety tests. Investigators say the man fled Ukraine amid the investigation. Mr. Zelensky has not been implicated and has saidthat he supports the investigation…..
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ISW….Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 6, 2026
- Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated Russia’s unwillingness to make any meaningful compromises in the peace negotiations process to end the war in Ukraine.
- Putin is doubling down on the fictional battlefield situation that he defines as “reality” and insisting that his misrepresentation of the actual state of the war become the basis for any peace negotiations on Ukraine.
- The lies and distortions of Russian military commanders at many levels are likely leading Putin to harden his perception that Russian forces can achieve his intended objectives in Donetsk Oblast by the end of 2026 and thus that he need not make any compromises in his aims.
- Russia is failing to achieve its battlefield objectives in reality, however, and is specifically failing in its priority objective of seizing the remainder of Donetsk Oblast by the end of 2026.
- Russian forces will not seize Donetsk Oblast until 2032 at their current rate of advance — if they can seize it at all.
- ISW is not prepared to assess that Russian forces will be able to take the rest of Donetsk Oblast on any timeline, however.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Witkoff and Kushner in Kyiv City on September 6 and agreed on fundamental principles for ending the war in Ukraine, including security and economic guarantees for post-war Ukraine.
- Putin’s demands transcend Donbas, however, as both his 2024 speech (to which Russian officials constantly allude) and Russia’s military operations demonstrate.
- Ukrainian forces continued their long-range strike campaign against Russian oil infrastructure and the suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses (SEAD/DEAD) campaign in Rostov Oblast on the night of September 5 to 6. Russian forces launched 108 drones against Ukraine overnight.
- Russian forces have achieved tactically-significant advances in the Hulyaipole direction in the past several months…..
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Daily Kos grunt report for Today…
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