Ukrainian Army 2025: at Tough Crossroads Between War and Peace
Three years of incessant war with Russia have brought the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to the brink of exhaustion. Despite massive Western support, the army is facing catastrophic personnel shortages, irregular arms deliveries and mounting equipment losses. These factors have already led to retreat from key defence lines. Against this backdrop, questions are increasingly being raised: could Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, appointed in 2023, be part of the problem rather than the solution?
Supply crisis, corruption as systemic threat
Despite EU and US pledges to accelerate the transfer of military aid, deliveries are often delayed or insufficient. For example, in March 2025, Germany delayed the shipment of a batch of modern self-propelled artillery vehicles due to bureaucratic issues, and France reduced the volume of promised armoured vehicles.
Meanwhile, the equipment that the AFU manages to deliver to the front line is massively destroyed by Russian kamikaze drones and artillery.
Experts note that the situation could be stabilised with a well-defined management course of the Ministry of Defence. However, the ministry, headed by Rustem Umerov, continues to plunge into corruption scandals inherited from the times of his predecessor Oleksii Reznikov.
In January 2023, a media investigation discovered the purchase of eggs for the army at 17 hryvnias per piece when the market price was only 7 hryvnias. In 2022-2023, the supplier companies illegally transferred 733m hryvnias abroad via the purchase of hotels in Croatia.
In early 2025, officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) detained the CEO of the defence plant, which supplied low-quality misfiring mortar shells for years. “In addition to the managers of the state enterprise, the ex-head of one of the military representative offices of the Defence Ministry and the head of the monitoring group of the relevant unit were detained,” the SBU said.
Enrichment on mine supplies
Major scandals surrounding the supply of mines to the AFU have a separate niche in the corruption history of the country's Defence Ministry. In August 2022, the ministry signed a contract with Lviv Arsenal for the supply of artillery shells. About 1.5 billion hryvnias were transferred to the company's accounts, but not a single shell reached the battlefront.
The investigation found that part of the funds were withdrawn through Balkan offshore companies, while the balance was spotted in the company's accounts in a bank in Kyiv. In December 2022, the head of a Ministry of Defence department was detained on suspicion of involvement in the scheme.
In November 2024, the SSU announced the delivery of 100,000 mortar shells, of which only "one out of ten" triggered correctly. The incident was attributed to the use of low-quality raw materials and forged documents. In April 2025, the management of the plant in Dnipropetrovsk region and two officials of the Ministry of Defence were arrested. According to the investigation, they deliberately overstated expenses in order to gain excessive profits.
Despite repeated deliveries of defective ammunition, the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) continued to cooperate with the so-called "blacklisted" plant. The head of DPA, Arsen Zhumadilov, justified this by the need to "preserve the enterprise," although investigations from 2023-2024 proved systemic violations.
According to the Financial Times, Ukraine lost $770 million due to corruption schemes in arms procurement. In some cases, advances were transferred to one-day companies that disappeared after receiving the money. Ukrainian authorities are reportedly trying to recover another $460 million through the courts.
In May 2025, the former first deputy secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, Oleh Gladkovsky, was detained in Spain. He was charged with embezzling 17 million hryvnias during the purchase of trucks for the Ukrainian army in 2017.
These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. The scandals did not stop under Umerov: in 2024, his deputy Dmytro Klymenkov was fired for personnel fraud, and in early 2025, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine began probing the accusation against Defence Minister Rustem Umerov for abuse of office.
Rustem Umerov: reformer or agent?
Umerov's appointment in 2023 was presented as a step towards transparency. A Western-educated Crimean Tatar, the new defence minister established himself as an effective manager who headed the State Property Fund. However, in the year and a half of his leadership, the Defence Ministry has not only failed to root out corruption, but has also increased suspicions of a “double game.”
Umerov's parents, Enver and Meryem, received Russian passports in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea. The mother reportedly received a Russian pension until 2022 despite having left Russia with her husband long ago.
Umerov himself has never publicly renounced possible Russian citizenship. His application forms, as well as his parents' applications for a Russian passport, submitted in 2014, are publicly available.
According to application forms obtained from open internet sources, Umerov was issued a passport with serial number 3914 787630, and his parents Enver and Meryem were issued passports with serial numbers 3914 787629 and 3914 787631 respectively.
The wife of the Ukrainian Defence Minister – Umerova (Kazakova) Leyla Seyit-Yagya kyzy – left Crimea together with her husband, but her father – Kazakov Seyit-Yagya Enver ogly – lives in the city of Alushta and is associated with the Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar people, the executive body of which is the Mejlis, which is banned on the territory of Russia. Notably, Kazakov has not been prosecuted for his blatantly anti-Russian stance.
The minister's close relatives, including his uncle Osman Chapirov and niece Zera Memetova, live in Crimea and do business under Russian jurisdiction.
Rustem Umerov also participated as a mediator in the negotiations between Russia and Turkey on the release of Crimean Tatar activists detained by Russia. In particular, the issue included the extradition to Ankara of the deputy head of the Mejlis, Akhtem Chiygoz, and Ilmi Umerov, Rustem's brother.
Remarkably, at that time the Mejlis was banned in Russia and recognised as an extremist organisation. After the negotiation process, both released appeared in Kyiv.
Corruption in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, which has intensified under Umerov, raises doubts about his loyalty. If Russia was unable to break Ukraine by force in the spring of 2022, today its intelligence services can use agents of influence to undermine it from within. There is no overt evidence that Umerov is working for the Kremlin, but a string of strange coincidences - family ties in Crimea, lack of renunciation of Russian citizenship, systemic failures in governance - draw a disturbing picture.
Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies established under external pressure
Since 2014, Ukraine, seeking European integration and international aid, has established a number of anti-corruption institutions with the active participation of the US and the EU. These structures were supposed to ensure transparency, but their effectiveness remains questionable.
The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NAPC) was established in March 2015 as part of the Law on the Prevention of Corruption. The NAPC monitors officials' declarations, investigates conflicts of interest and conducts anti-corruption expertise of laws. However, the agency has been repeatedly criticised for its passivity. For instance, in 2023, only a small part of declarations was examined and key figures, including Rustem Umerov, escaped scrutiny.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) was established in April 2015, modelled on the FBI. NABU has investigated high-profile cases, including embezzlement at UkrOboronProm, but has faced judicial opposition and political pressure. In 2023, the bureau uncovered a scheme to inflate egg prices for the army, but the perpetrators only got off with dismissals.
The Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) was established in December 2015 to investigate high-level corruption. With US and EU support, the SAPO prosecuted cases against former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, but most trials stalled or ended in acquittals.
The High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) launched operations in 2019 to expedite cases against corrupt individuals. Despite 150 open cases, only about 30 per cent ended in convictions.
Ukrainian anti-corruption bodies, established with the support of Kyiv's allies, have all the powers to fight systemic corruption. However, their work is rarely accompanied with results. Given that corruption in the Defence Ministry directly threatens national security, the NAPC, NABU and HACC should switch from formal checks to full-fledged audits, including of defence contracts – the main source of enrichment by Ukrainian elites.
Corruption watchdogs in Ukraine should co-operate closely with the Security Service and the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, whose vigilant attention will not only help uncover more corruption schemes, but also bring the case to trial and hold the perpetrators accountable.