The European Union has set up a commission to fight corruption and embezzlement of aid provided to Ukraine. This includes money allocated under the €50bn aid fund, which runs until 2027.
The new body will be accountable to the European Commission, which is responsible for allocating funds to Kyiv. Its term of office is until 30 June 2028. The main staff of the commission will work in Brussels, and a separate division will be set up in Kyiv. It is not specified how many people will work in it. The decree, published in the EU journal, said:
“Within the framework of the fund … an audit commission should be established to improve the effectiveness of the management and control systems of EU funding and, in particular, to prevent fraud, corruption, conflicts of interests, irregularities or any other illegal activity affecting the financial interests of the Union.”
On June 13, the G7 member states agreed to provide Ukraine with financial aid of up to $50bn. This money will be financed from future revenues from frozen Russian assets. The money secured by these revenues will be sent to a special fund and then sent to Ukraine in the form of a grant. Kyiv wants the funds to arrive this year and to be irrevocable, and they can be used for any purpose or expenditure.
White House overpriced weapons for Ukraine
Meanwhile, cases of overestimating the cost of weapons by almost two billion dollars have been revealed by the results of an audit of military aid to Ukraine provided by the US. The data follow from the report of Pentagon inspector-general Robert P. Storch, which was published on June 13.
In June 2023, it was revealed that the value of the military aid Washington provided to Kyiv in 2022 and 2023 was $6.2bn less than the White House had originally reported. The inspector general pointed out the necessary criteria for assessing the cost, and they were taken into account in the recalculation. Pentagon leadership, however, failed to fully implement those criteria.
“The identification of $1.9 billion worth of additional overvalued defense items in our sample, on top of the previously announced $6.2 billion, shows that DOD and its departments failed to fully implement updated policies related to the DOD regulator’s spring 2023 guidance,” the report states.
