Around a third of the humanitarian aid intended for the armed forces did not reach the 200 or so military units for which it was intended after clearing customs, the State Customs Service of Ukraine has said.
“During 9 months of 2023, as a result of the joint measures of the Department for Combating Smuggling and Customs Violations of the State Customs Service and the Department of Internal Audit of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, more than 9,000 instances of the movement of humanitarian aid goods intended for 200 military units were checked,” the agency said.
In doing so they established more than 3,000 cases of where its receipt by military units had not been confirmed.
Customs also reported that they had sent 387 reports that indicated possible criminal actions the Criminal Code of Ukraine [regarding illegal use of humanitarian aid for profit - ed.]
Also, the employees of the department raised 320 protocols alleging violations of customs rules, in respect of goods intended for humanitarian use.
Recently Kyiv Post wrote about the fact that from December 1, 2022, Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 953 will enter into force. It provides for the creation of an electronic declaration and the publishing of public reports on the distribution of humanitarian aid.
Such changes caused concern among the volunteer community that due to the new procedures, the delivery of humanitarian aid to the military may be significantly slowed down.
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Comments (5)
My package to a friend in Vinnytsia was inspected at customs and the $300 cash was missing. I now only use Western Union to send cash.
The lost supplies are not lost, those supplies were most likely not signed for as being received. Those 200 units most likely received those supplies but did not record them as received.
I strongly endorse the Comment by LL. If left without any clarification, the article will feed that segment of the U.S. that opposes all aid to Ukraine. It will also further discourage foreigners from trying to support Ukraine's military and its civilian population.
Certainly disappearance of some aid can be expected for both justifiable (lost to Russian forces and/or taken by starving civilians) and totally criminal reasons (corruption by Ukrainian officials). Even during WWII, some 10% of fuel supplies to the Allied forces in Europe were siphoned off into the black market.
Maybe I do not fully understand the article. It is an eye-catching headline, but this article doesn't say much. It's just saying we know 70% of the stuff got there. We don't know what happened to the other 30% (of what appear to be volunteer controlled aid deliveries to the armed forces), but we are assuming that corruption is the only explanation.
It seems to me that a 70% success rate for non-military personnel delivering aid to a war zone is decent. It is not fantastic, but not terrible.
First of all, we can assume that this aid is being shipped through areas where the enemy is actively bombing anything that could be an aid vehicle, right? Isn't that what the Russians are known to do? So, how much of the aid was simply destroyed or captured by the enemy en route? Did anyone determine how much of a factor that could be? If so, it might have been helpful to include that context.
Second of all, war makes desperate people and breeds corruption. Yes, there is a good argument that stealing bullet proof vests meant for troops is treason, but food, water, or other essentials? Desperate people make desperate decisions. There is no context for the type of aid that was stolen.
I'm not saying this is fantastic. I'm just saying there is not enough context in this article to make a good judgment about what is happening to missing aid. If you are shipping things into a war zone and not planning for a certain amount of loss, it seems to me that you are planning to fail.
All those involved should be executed upon conviction for treason.
@Philip Tummarello, - Ukraine wants in to the EU. The EU forbids state executions. Not going to happen.