Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his intention to strengthen his fight against corruption Friday (August 11) after he dismissed all the heads of Ukraine's regional army recruitment centers as the war with Russia enters a critical stage.
He said a state investigation into centers across the country had exposed abuses by officials ranging from illegal enrichment to transporting draft-eligible men across the border despite a wartime ban on them leaving the country, Reuters reported.
In total, Zelensky detailed, 112 criminal cases had been opened in a wide-ranging probe launched after a graft scandal at a recruitment office in the Odesa region last month.
He used harsh rhetoric likely to be welcomed by Ukrainians appalled by cases of wartime corruption, saying he would replace the people he fired with recent veterans and soldiers wounded at the front.
"This system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and bribery during war is treason," he said.
Zelensky added top general Valery Zaluzhny would be responsible for implementing his decision and that new candidates for the posts would first have to be vetted by Ukraine's Security Service (SBU).
Projecting Transparency
The move by Kyiv was part of its priority of internal cleansing as it fends off Russia's full-scale invasion and seeks membership in the European Union.
Furthermore, the decision was made as a result of Ukraine's less-than-ideal progress in its counter-offensive due to extensive Russian defenses across the southeast.
Zelensky, who has already fired or prosecuted a string of high-ranking officials implicated in sleaze in the past, demanded the sacked officers be reassigned to the front lines "if they want to keep their epaulets and prove their dignity."
Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed or wounded in fighting since Russia invaded in February 2022, and the country has increasingly faced recruitment challenges due to the conflict becoming a war of attrition, as well as due to graft scandals of heavy-handed recruitment tactics.
Last month, the head of the Odesa region's recruitment center was ordered into pre-trial detention on suspicion of illegal enrichment after Ukrainian media reports found his family had acquired lavish property in Spain.
Meanwhile, videos purporting to depict army recruiters aggressively pursuing or becoming violent with would-be draftees have gone viral on social media in the country, which has been under martial law since the invasion.
Despite recent moves against graft, Ukraine still ranks 116th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's latest Corruption Perceptions Index.
A Transparency-commissioned opinion poll in June found that 77% of Ukrainians believe corruption is among Ukraine's most serious problems.
Prior to the war, Zelensky was in the process of obliterating the practice of graft in the Ukrainian government and society when he was elected president in 2019.
