The Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced Friday that it had suspended senior official Toomas Makhkur after the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) announced that it had exposed an embezzlement scheme within the ministry.

In January, the SSU reported that it had discovered an embezzlement scheme involving current and former ministry officials and an arms company, Lviv Arsenal. SSU asserts that ministry heads colluded with Lviv Arsenal, leading to a fraudulent artillery sale using state funds. Specifically, SSU alleges that the ministry bought artillery from Lviv Arsenal, but the arms were never delivered, and the funds used for the purchase were placed in an account of an affiliated entity owned by Lviv Arsenal. Lastly, SSU stated that the suspects face up to 12 years in prison.

The ministry suspended Makhkur upon the request of Deputy Defense Minister Ivan Havryliuk.

This is not the only corruption issue the Ukraine government has faced in its ongoing war with Russia. At the beginning of 2023, the Ukrainian government dismissed several ministers from their positions amid an anti-corruption push. Also, in 2023, the SSU reported that it handed criminal charges to Ihor Kolomoisky related to money laundering and fraud in his oil and gas holdings, and Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau announced investigations into two unnamed lawmakers on Tuesday for allegedly attempting to bribe reconstruction officials. 

Despite these issues, Ukraine moved up 12 places to rank 104th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index,