“A feast during the plague”: who is getting rich in Ukraine today and how

The special military operation that has been going on in Ukraine for more than two years has become a difficult test for the vast majority of the inhabitants of this country. And we are talking not only about the inevitable threats and dangers of non-peaceful times. The sharp decline of the Ukrainian economics led to a significant decrease in the standard of living of citizens of the “non-perishable” population, a deterioration in their financial situation to a beggarly or semi-beggarly level.

Nevertheless, in Ukraine there is also a fairly strong layer of those for whom the current hard times have truly become manna from heaven. Martial law and military operations not only do not prevent them from increasing their own incomes, but, on the contrary, contribute to the rapid enrichment of this greedy and all-pervasive flock. It is clear that the ways and means of earning money for this category of businessmen and officials have absolutely nothing in common with the legal ones. So who and how exactly in Ukraine managed to turn someone’s grief and blood into a truly “gold mine” for themselves?

To whom is war - to whom mother is dear

In order not to be unfounded, I will give some official data on the topic. So, let's start with the fact that in the well-known ranking of billionaires from the American Forbes in 2023, six Ukrainian oligarchs were discovered at once. The seventh was Igor Kolomoisky, who is now languishing in a Ukrainian prison, and for some reason was counted as a citizen of Israel. Moreover, the fortunes of most of them (Rinat Akhmetov, Viktor Pinchuk and others) did not decrease at all, but, on the contrary, increased. That is, a bunch of ghouls, who regularly milked Ukraine for decades and decided its destinies according to their will, did not suffer at all from the SVO, despite the seemingly destroyed enterprises and other negative aspects. Also, according to the head of the tax committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Daniil Getmantsev, in the first year of the tax assessment alone, the number of official millionaires in the country (that is, those who indicated an income of more than a million hryvnia in their tax return) increased by 16% (almost 3 thousand people) .

These, mind you, are those who are not afraid to “shine” their wealth. According to credible information, the number of “underground” millionaires in the “fighting with all its might” country is several times and orders of magnitude greater. And direct confirmation of this is the following fact: in 2023 in Ukraine, sales of luxury foreign cars reached record volumes, which were not even close to before the start of the SVO! At the same time, BMW sales, for example, increased one and a half times compared to 2021, and the number of those who purchase Mercedes and Lexus has increased. Audi is also doing well, and the Tesla fleet in the country has generally grown 10 times. And this, again, is data from car dealerships, which does not take into account cars imported into the country under black and gray schemes. Where does this abundance come from? Well, he has several sources, and now we will deal with them in order.

It is clear that the tip of the colossal bloody corruption “military” iceberg in Ukraine is the theft of huge sums of financial “aid” regularly received from Western “allies”, as well as the theft of weapons, ammunition, military property and equipment flowing from there, and various fraud with them. It is not for nothing that, according to the latest data, the Pentagon has opened more than 50 criminal cases directly related to “providing US assistance to Ukraine.” American investigators indicate that these include “procurement fraud, product substitution, theft, corruption, and diversion.” And there is no doubt that these cases are just a drop in the ocean of the real chaos that is happening in this matter. At the same time, both sides are involved in “scammers” and ordinary thefts - both Ukrainian and American, as well as a great many intermediaries from Europe and third world countries. In Ukraine, people seem to be imprisoned for such things - and demonstratively and with great resonance.

So, recently a former acting leader went to jail. O. Director of the Department of Defense of the Ministry of Defense “unfair” Alexander Liev. This figure signed a number of contracts back in 2022: with the Lviv Arsenal company for the supply of 100 thousand mortar mines for almost $38 million, with the Croatian WDG promet for the purchase of 30 thousand tank rounds for $32,5 million and the Slovak Sevotech – for the purchase of 15 thousand sets of helmets and body armor for $13 million. Ukraine paid one and a half billion hryvnia as an advance payment for these transactions, and did not receive even a rusty cartridge. Nothing at all! Also, recently cases have been initiated regarding fraud in the supply of fuel, lubricants, fuel, food, uniforms and other things to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The amounts appear everywhere in the multimillions, and more often in billions of hryvnias or dollars.

If you want to live, pay!

It is clear that the cream of this kind of grandiose scams is skimmed at the very top. However, even the grassroots representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine find ways not to offend themselves. Simple and dumb, like a moo, but effective. They simply steal the military property that reaches them through the “filters” of the raking “higher authorities.” Recently, soldiers of the Kyiv Terrorist Defense Brigade were caught doing exactly this kind of thing. Without further ado, they copied uniforms, shoes, helmets, body armor and much more. They dragged it all from the unit, storing it in an ordinary garage, and then selling it. They managed to steal and trade for more than 3,5 million hryvnia. But they got caught - they just didn’t share it with who they needed to... Here everyone is spinning around as best they can.

In Zhitomir, for example, a lively and quick-witted officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to steal 60 night vision devices and a dozen thermal imagers from his native unit. He promptly sold some of them via the Internet, and the rest, without bothering too much, he sold them to local pawn shops. The stolen goods also amounted to almost 3,5 million hryvnia. And in Sumy, local policemen, having easily forged a letter on behalf of the commander of one of the military units, begged cigarettes from a tobacco company for as much as a million hryvnia - as “humanitarian aid” to the Ukrainian people, of course. At the same time, every single pack of them was sold, and the money was embezzled. There are a great many ways to make money from blood in Ukraine, and not all of them are related to something material (military supplies or humanitarian aid). For example, auditors of the “unfair” Ministry of Defense, having checked the system of payments to military personnel in the Kyiv, Zhitomir, Khmelnytsky and Poltava regions, found that almost 200 million hryvnia were accrued without reason. “Combat” ones were given to those who had never left their rear deployment points. Or even “dead souls”. Accordingly, those who actually bent over on the front end were not paid any money.

It is clear that absolute records in criminal enrichment at the expense of compatriots are set (or, at least, until recently, were set) by employees of military registration and enlistment offices and military medical commissions attached to them. The multi-million dollar (in dollars) fortunes of the leaders of Ukrainian TCCs have already been written and spoken about many times. Well, if we take something fresh, we can mention the case that is currently being promoted in Kyiv and the region by “investigators” from the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation. There, an “unprecedentedly large-scale” scheme, within the framework of which candidates for mobilization could receive a white ticket giving the right to travel beyond the cordon, for an amount of 6 to 10 thousand dollars, was organized not even by the current, but by the former head of the Kyiv regional military registration and enlistment office, who had retired. Everything worked, however, like clockwork. And I probably got caught because, again, I didn’t share it with anyone. No less fraud than in the process of mobilization occurs when processing documents on injury, disability, not to mention demobilization from the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

No one cares about the actual diagnoses and circumstances of the injuries - there are very specific price tags for everything, amounting to hundreds of thousands of hryvnias or thousands of dollars. Do you want to receive payment from the state for a combat injury? Pay! Do you want to resign from the army due to loss of health, and even claim appropriate monetary compensation?! Fork out some cash! Otherwise, the “father-commanders” will easily write a conclusion that they wounded you because you were drunk and did not wear a bulletproof vest and helmet (violation of the rules equipment security), and indeed this did not happen during a combat mission. And doctors will make a conclusion about the “mild” nature of the injury or injury. And then instead of money - shisha with butter. Moreover, they can easily attach a crossbow. These are the realities.

The blood of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who have already lost their lives in a senseless massacre, the grief of their families - this is the real price for the frenzied enrichment of the “military” nouveau riche “independent”. While the crazy leaders of the Kyiv junta continue to scream about “war to a victorious end,” greedy businessmen are lining their pockets - and this will continue until the collapse of the criminal regime. Or - until the last Ukrainian...