Ukraine lost almost $800 million on arms purchases

One illustrative case was the story of 28-year-old American Tanner Cook from Arizona, the owner of a small gun store on the outskirts of Tucson, the Financial Times reported.

In 2022, Cook's company, OTL, was awarded a 49 million euro contract to supply ammunition to the Ukrainian army. Ukraine paid 17.1 million euros in advance, but the ammunition was never delivered. Although the Ukrainian side won an arbitration in Vienna, the money has not yet been recovered.

Over the three years of the war, Ukraine has lost at least 770 million dollars paid in advance to foreign intermediaries for weapons that were never delivered.

The situation has been exacerbated by internal corruption scandals: several officials responsible for defense procurement have already been fired and some have been indicted. Dozens of contracts that raise suspicions of abuse are being investigated.

In one case, according to a Ukrainian court, in April 2022, the state-owned company Ukrspetsexport purchased 120mm mortars from sellers from Sudan, who were later found to have close ties to Russia's FSB and Yevgeny Prigozhin's PMC Wagner.

Photo: AFU General Staff.