Corruption in the defense sector is a decisive obstacle to Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. To overcome it, I propose four main solutions: Transparent defense budget The budget law should show in detail every hryvnia – what it is spent on, which combat unit it goes to, and where these funds or the equipment purchased with them will be used. It should be a document like in the United States of America, where every penny is visible and what it was spent on. It is not the number that determines what and how much we should buy, but how much money we will spend on it. That is, it is not the defense budget that receives 1,000,000 for a certain number of units, but we buy 5 units and spend 1,000,000 on it. Removing state secrets from state procurement in the defense sector, except for the latest developments The principle is this: deputies should have access to the secret part. Fears that the enemy will find out what equipment we have and how many soldiers we have are ridiculous in a situation where we have infiltrated Russian agents in the executive branch, in the special services, in the Armed Forces, or in the parliament. Reform of the SBU The Security Service must be deprived of all functions not inherent to it, in particular, the investigation of economic crimes, which they actually use to put pressure on business. Such crimes should be dealt with by an independent financial police. This should be a body that, without a “mask show”, will search for offenses in the financial sphere based on data. Now the SBU has been transformed from an institution of defense and protection into an instrument for serving criminal elements and political persecution. Civilian control of the parliament over the Armed Forces and special services Our Western partners are ready to help us – including with money. But the fear that this money or equipment will be stolen is holding them back from helping Ukraine.
We have been talking about the need to remove the “secret” stamp from procurement in the security and defense sector for a long time. Deputies from the “Samopomich” Association in parliament have been working on developing such a bill for a long time. We have also talked about this with our partners in the United States, they also see this as a driver for overcoming corruption in the defense sector.
Justifying this with the war, officials working in the field of security and defense argue that neither the Prozorro system nor any other public procurement platforms can work in this sector. We must be aware that the war will last a long time and, of course, there must be a certain level of maneuverability, the ability to make quick decisions. But this should not apply to socks, croup, uniforms, diesel, and other daily needs of the army. This is precisely why the law on a detailed defense budget, which our deputies registered, is needed, because only with a detailed and transparent defense budget can corruption in the defense sector be combated.
Ukroboronprom must be liquidated. This concern was created specifically to centralize management in the production, supply, export, and similar sectors of the defense sector. However, it is also to centralize corruption. Unfortunately, the enterprises of the military-industrial complex are suffocating from the fact that they are in this concern, since they are unable to make any decisions and actions on their own. Therefore, all enterprises of the military-industrial complex must be autonomous; management methods must be corporatized with the ability to make independent decisions and conclude contracts (including with foreign companies directly) in the manner established by law and with certain restrictions established by the Ministry of Defense. It is vital to attract foreign investment and innovation to our military-industrial complex. After all, despite the fact that we have professionals left, it has become frankly outdated. Foreign partners are ready to invest money and test their latest equipment with us, because we have combat operations. Because it is more difficult to earn money from this, the current military leadership and the President are not interested in such investments. We must move from repairing and modernizing old Soviet equipment to a clear state policy in the field of the defense-industrial complex, which is absent in the 5th year of the war. We must understand what equipment we should produce ourselves, and if we cannot produce it, then from whom do we purchase it.
Any trade with the occupied territories is aid to the occupier. Back in 2017, Samopomich supported the blockade of trade with the occupied territories initiated by veterans and the people. The result was that the military once again believed that we were really at war, and not trade under the guise of war.
The problem is that not all land in Ukraine is accounted for. And decisions about the land that is under the management of state authorities are made in an unknown way – whether on distribution or on disposal. The Ministry of Defense should own only the land on which military units and critical infrastructure are located, which is controlled by the security and defense sector. Other land that does not perform the functions directly assigned to the Armed Forces should be transferred to communal ownership.
Housing and social conditions for a soldier are his dignity and the key to his motivation to serve in the army and on the battlefield. A soldier should not think in the trenches that he and his family have nowhere to live, nowhere to return to, and about living in rented apartments forever. This is a humiliation of the soldier’s dignity, an insult to his family, and a devaluation of the military profession. In Lviv, we developed a program according to which every orphaned military serviceman received an apartment after returning from the ATO. This was municipal money, and we did not take a single penny from the state budget. A similar program at the state level is actually not that expensive. Our team is working to calculate how much it might cost, and as soon as we have these calculations, we will publish them for the public.
