Zelensky sacks heads at all military recruitment centres for corruption
Volodymyr Zelensky has sacked all of Ukraine’s regional military commissars over corruption and told them to fight in the trenches if they want to claw back any self-worth.
He said that injured war veterans who have fought on the front line would be promoted to head regional military offices.
“This system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and bribery during war is treason,” Mr Zelensky said.
He was elected as Ukraine’s president in 2019 on an anti-corruption platform and he has promised his Western backers that he will continue to root out corruption even during Ukraine’s war with Russia.
Mr Zelensky has already sacked several military commanders and government officials for corruption since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In a statement on Friday he said a review of recruitment centres showed that corruption was still rife, with officials taking bribes to help men dodge conscription or to hand out spots in units not involved in front-line fighting.
“If they want to keep their rank and prove their dignity, then they must go to the front,” Mr Zelesnky said of regional military commissars.
Mr Zelensky said that there were currently 112 criminal investigations into corruption at Ukrainian recruitment centres and he ordered General Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s military, to oversee military recruitment.
Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian newspaper, also quoted an unnamed source in the military as saying that the minister of defence, Oleksiy Reznikov, could be sacked.
In March, Mr Zelensky ordered his officials to redouble their anti-corruption efforts after an investigative journalist discovered the ministry was paying overinflated prices for soldiers’ rations.
The scandal triggered brief speculation that Mr Reznikov would be sacked, but he kept his job.
The European Union has drawn up a roadmap for Ukraine to join the bloc but has said that more must be done to root out corruption.
In 2021, before Russia’s invasion, Transparency International ranked Ukraine 122nd in its Corruption Perception Index, just above Niger, Gabon and Mexico.
