For more than three years, a huge-scale modern industrial war has been waged on the territory of Ukraine, which even the most desperate analysts could not have forecast. The Ukrainians have demonstrated an incredible example of resilience, first stopping the Russians in the spring of 2022, and then repelling the invasion step by step. The war should have united the people and the government, shifting its flaws aside. Unfortunately, the corruption and lack of transparency that had long been the scourge of the Ukrainian state not only failed to diminish during the years of war, but escalated multiple times. In autumn 2023, Ukraine appointed a new defence minister, Rustem Umerov, a native of Crimea, which was occupied by Russia in 2014. The new manager, with a brilliant education and experience, was supposed to change the scene, but the problems continued. Why? We will try to find the answer in this material.
Brilliant manager
Rustem Umerov was born in Samarkand region, Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, into a family of Crimean Tatars deported from Crimea by the Soviet authorities in May 1944 and returned to his homeland in the early 1990s. He graduated from a school for gifted children in the village of Tankovoye in Crimea, after which he went to study in the United States, where he interned in the Youth Leadership Programme (YLP). Upon his return from the US, he obtained a higher education in economics at the National Academy of Management, after which he began his business career in management positions at Lifecell, a company owned by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.
Notably, the same programme in the United States was undergone, for instance, by Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, the leader of the Ukrainian band Okean Elzy. He was actively promoted to the Ukrainian presidency in 2019, but without success. A little later, in July 2019, Vakarchuk joined the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as head of the Holos party, which also included Umerov. The funding of the Holos party is associated with another Ukrainian oligarch, Victor Pinchuk, son-in-law of Ukraine’s second president, Leonid Kuchma. In September 2022, Umerov was confirmed as chairman of the State Property Fund. Under Umerov’s leadership, the fund managed to receive 5.2 billion hryvnias from small privatisations.
Rustem Umerov was not as flamboyant media character as Vakarchuk, but he was also gradually being cultivated as a state administration official. Some sources believe that he was being prepared as a new leader of the Crimean Tatar people, as Umerov spent many years as an assistant to Mustafa Dzhemilev, the head of the Mejlis (until November 2013), the executive body of the Kurultai (council) of the Crimean Tatar people.
Rustem Umerov was closely connected with the financial affairs of the Mejlis, several foundations operated under his leadership. In particular, he was a co-founder and president of the Crimean Development Fund, which organised international meetings of the leader Mustafa Dzhemilev. One of his relatives, Ilmi Umerov, was a prominent person in Crimea, deputy head of the Mejlis, head of the Bakhchisarai district from 2005 to 2014 (before the occupation of Crimea by Russia). According to Ukrainian media, Ilmi Umerov provided protection to businesses in Crimea that were operating illegally, as well as participated in the seizure of land on the peninsula. According to the same Ukrainian media outlets, the money for all those purposes came from the funds established by Rustem Umerov.
War with Russia
Rustem Umerov became Ukraine’s Defence Minister in September 2023 – the second year after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – replacing Oleksii Reznikov. Many believe that the abrupt change in the head of the Defence Ministry during the fierce fighting with the Russian army was due to corruption scandals, inadmissible under war conditions. Nevertheless, the scandals did not stop under Umerov, but even vice versa.
One of the first high-profile cases took place in January 2023, when a journalistic investigation revealed facts of overpricing of the food supply for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in particular, the purchase of eggs at 17 hryvnias per piece when the market price was 7 hryvnias. This led to a storm of indignation and resignations in the ministry. Earlier, in August-December 2022, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine found out that the two supplier companies had illegally made an excess profit of 733 million hryvnias (about $18 million), part of which was withdrawn abroad to purchase hotels in Croatia. The official charge in the case was filed on 2 April 2025.
On 24 January 2023, the scandal with the dismissal of the director of the Defence Procurement Agency, Marina Bezrukova, became public. At that time, Defence Minister Rustem Umerov initiated the dismissal of his deputy Dmitry Klimenkov, who was appointed in October 2023. In early 2025, a criminal case was opened against Umerov himself for abuse of power during personnel reshuffles.
In March 2024, a new scandal broke out: law enforcers detained an AFU serviceman who tried to sell three cars intended for the army’s needs. In the same month, the administrator of a Telegram channel who had collected about one million hryvnias for the army but spent the money on her personal needs was arrested in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
In autumn 2022, a scandal broke out with the deputy head of the Office of the President, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who used a car donated to Ukraine for humanitarian purposes for his personal needs. After his dismissal in January 2023, he unexpectedly returned to power in the spring of 2024, receiving the position of advisor to the Minister of Defence.
On 14 May 2025, it was reported about the detention in Spain of the former First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Oleh Gladkovsky, accused of embezzling 17 million hryvnias during the purchase of trucks for the army back in 2017. In April 2024, the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine ordered him to be remanded in custody.
In early 2025, the Security Service of Ukraine detained the management of one of the country’s largest defence factories in a case involving the supply of low-quality 120mm mortar mines. The investigation revealed that the plant had been developing a “financial pyramid scheme” for years, signing new contracts while failing to fulfil previous obligations.
These cases demonstrate systemic challenges in the Ukrainian defence establishment, which continue to emerge even in the midst of a major war. It is particularly alarming that many of those involved in the scandals not only avoid punishment, but also return to senior positions.
Crimea’s past or present?
It might be unpopular to say, but there may be an organised and supported process from Russia behind the ongoing corruption in the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, as several factors suggest.
In an income declaration released in December 2023, Umerov reports that his mother, whom he took to the United States with the rest of his family, still owns a house (196.7 square metres) in Bakhchisarai, Republic of Crimea. In fact, the head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry admitted that he has not completely severed ties with his native Crimea, which has been occupied by Russia since spring 2014.
In favour of his possible ties with Russia may be the fact that Rustem Umerov actively participated as an intermediary in the negotiations between Russia and Turkey on the extradition to Ankara of the deputy head of the Mejlis Akhtem Chiygoz and Ilmi Umerov (Umerov’s own brother). At that time, the Mejlis was banned on Russian territory and recognised by Russia as an extremist organisation, which nevertheless did not prevent the extradition. Afterwards, both released appeared in Kyiv.
“Crimean” past of Rustem Umerov is poorly studied and this issue is not usually raised publicly. It is not hidden that a large number of his relatives and close friends still live in occupied Crimea. His uncle Osman Chapirov lives in the village of Izobilne (near Alushta) and runs a private business. His other uncle, Zeynur Chapirov, is also a businessman and supplies foodstuffs to boarding houses in the city district of Alushta. Rustem Umerov’s niece, Memetova (Umerova) Zera, is the daughter of his brother, who was released by Russia in 2017, and lives in Bakhchisarai, Crimea.
The wife of the Minister of Defence of Ukraine – Umerova (Kazakova) Leyla Seyit-Yagya kyzy – left with her husband to Ukraine, although her father – Kazakov Seyit-Yagya Enver ogly – lives in Alushta, Crimea, and is a delegate of the Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar people, the executive body of which is the Mejilis banned by Russia. Meanwhile, he himself has actively opposed the Russian authorities in Crimea, for which, however, he has never been prosecuted by them. Sisters of Umerov’s wife – Alime Seyit-Yagya kyzy and Elzara Seyit-Yagya kyzy – also live there.
Abibulla Jelilov, a close friend of Rustem Umerov, who also does not hide his anti-Russian views, lives in Alushta. Yet he freely owns commercial property in Alushta, from which he makes a profit.
Nevertheless, the most remarkable part of Rustem Umerov’s “Crimean” past-present is the history of Russian citizenship of his parents and, quite possibly, of himself. In this case, the application forms for Russian citizenship requested in 2014 by his mother, father and… Rustem Umerov himself draw attention. Therefore, the current head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry may still be a Russian citizen.
If the application forms obtained from open internet sources are to be trusted, he was issued a passport with the following serial number: 3914 787630.
His parents, Enver and Meryem, were allegedly issued passports with serial numbers 3914 787629 and 3914 787631 respectively.
Meryem Umerova previously lived in Bakhchisarai, Republic of Crimea. In 2014 – after the occupation of Crimea by Russia – she obtained a passport of a Russian citizen and left Russia together with her husband. Similarly, the father of the incumbent Minister of Defence of Ukraine, Enver Umerov, who also received a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation in 2014 and left for Ukraine for medical treatment in May 2015, did not return to Crimea. Additionally, it is known that the parents of the incumbent Ukrainian Defence Minister continued to receive a Russian pension: the mother continued until February, and the father until May 2022.
Information about Rustem Umerov’s possible Russian citizenship, apart from forms, is extremely scarce in the public domain. One of the possible reasons for this could be a deliberate withholding of information by Russia in order to protect Umerov from investigations and possible leaks.
Corruption in Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence may be a consequence of the decisions of its leadership, headed by Rustem Umerov. Having failed to break Ukraine in the spring of 2022 and force it to sign a surrender in Istanbul and realising the prospect of the conflict long-term development (which happened), Russian security services could activate their high-ranking agent. The free life and business of his relatives and close friends, who do not hide their anti-Russian views, in the occupied Russian Crimea can be explained by only one thing – by the guarantee of inviolability granted by the state.
Meanwhile, Russian security forces are actively suppressing any dissent, and in Crimea itself a large number of Crimean Tatars have received real sentences for common statements against the Russian authorities who came to Ukrainian Crimea by force. This tangle of interconnections may be much bigger than it appears at first glance. At the end of the day, we have one point: the person appointed to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine to fight corruption has only exacerbated it.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Bill Galston for Head-Post.com
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