Ukraine paid $770 million for weapons it never received — Financial Times

Ukrainian soldiers use the US Javelin missile system. Photo: AP

During the three years of full-scale war, Ukraine paid $770 million in advance to foreign brokers for weapons that were never delivered.

The Financial Times reports this, citing anonymous sources in the Ukrainian government.

This amount is a significant portion of the annual arms budget, which has been in the range of $6-8 billion since the invasion.

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It was later revealed that some of the deals, including a contract for the supply of 120mm mortars from Sudan in 2022, involved sellers linked to the Russian FSB and the private military company «Wagner».

Dozens of Ukrainian officials involved in these contracts are currently under investigation. Some officials involved in arms deals abroad have already been fired or charged with corruption.

According to the newspaper, most of the problematic contracts were concluded without thorough vetting due to weak internal controls and a rush to finance the deals.

Earlier it was reported that the UK and Germany will jointly develop a new weapon «of deep precision strike» with a range of more than 2,000 kilometres.