Earlier this year, we received a set of audits that reviewed how the Ukrainian military was spending its money on weapons and ammunition for the war against Russia.
Ukrainian military procurement is notoriously corrupt and mismanaged. In more than 700 pages of financial tables and dryly worded critiques, these records offer one of the finest-grained pictures to date of just how the process goes wrong.
The confidential reviews by the State Audit Service and an internal Ministry of Defense auditing department cover 2024 and 2025. They show persistent patterns of overpaying for weapons, cutting deals with intermediaries rather than directly with manufacturers, and awarding contracts to companies that have already failed to deliver or been charged with corruption.
The Defense Procurement Agency declined to comment. Tamerlan Vahabov, a former adviser to the agency, told us that overspending and waste have real consequences. “As a result, we don’t have money to order more weapons,” he said. “And we don’t have the quantity of ammunition we need. And it is a recurring pattern.”
Auditors found repeated examples of inflated prices, yet nothing was done.
In Ukraine, even small amounts of money are considered essential when it comes to raising funds for the military. Many restaurant bills suggest donations to the army rather than tips.
But auditors found that military procurement officials routinely paid higher prices than necessary for weapons.
A 2024 report by the State Audit Service sharply criticized the country’s dealings with arms traders, who serve as intermediaries and typically charge a markup of at least 3 percent. A large majority of purchases were made through these intermediaries, which drove up prices and made tens of millions of dollars for the companies.
Despite that critique, another audit in early 2025 again found multiple lucrative contracts with traders, even when weapons could be obtained for less directly from manufacturers.
For example, in 2024, when Ukraine needed to buy hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of rockets, the agency signed a contract with a Czech intermediary, even though it had significantly cheaper offers for the same products, including a direct offer from the manufacturer.
Companies failed to deliver, or provided faulty ammo, and still got more contracts.
Of the top 10 contractors for Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, seven won new business despite having defaulted on earlier contracts or having their senior management under criminal investigation.
One contractor received new business while he was out on bail in a corruption case.
The auditors found Ukraine’s weapons purchasers signed deals with 18 companies that had a history of defaulting on agreements. Six of these had failed to fulfill a single contract, yet the agency continually signed new contracts with them.
One company failed to deliver any of the 600 specialized drones it promised, then won a new contract for 1,950 more.
Of these, the company delivered only 50 units on time, auditors wrote.
The audits did not explain why the companies kept winning business. Former officials and experts say that corruption is to blame for much of the mismanagement and overspending.
Companies won contracts without proving they could deliver.
Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency contracted with an intermediary, which promised to deliver 70-millimeter unguided aviation rockets from Turkey.
The Turkish manufacturer, though, warned the Ukrainian military that it could not provide the volumes that the intermediary had promised. The government signed the deal anyway, auditors found.
The military bought the weapons without proof that they had been tested. One rocket exploded in a launch tube and severely damaged a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter during a combat operation, triggering a criminal investigation by the domestic intelligence agency.
Arms companies reported rising profits, while Ukraine’s losses piled up.
The war has meant surging profits surging for military contractors in Ukraine and around the world.
The Czechoslovak Group, a major European weapons manufacturing and trading company, went public this year. It told investors that it had benefited significantly from sales in Ukraine.
An explosives supplier, the Pavlohrad Chemical Plant in central Ukraine, reversed years of losses by selling to the military during the war.
American and European contractors have made millions, too.
But problems with the procurement process have meant real losses for the Ukrainian government.
Auditors found that in just one year, 2024, Ukraine lost about $1.2 billion to fraud, waste and mismanagement.
The post 4 Things We Found in Secret Ukrainian Military Audits appeared first on New York Times.
