LVIV, Ukraine — In order to gain victory over Russia, Ukraine first needs to defeat corruption in its military sector, former U.S. deputy assistant Secretary of Defense and senior fellow with the Atlantic Council think tank Michael Carpenter has said
Speaking during a debate at the Lviv Security Forum on Nov. 30, Carpenter said closing the state-run defense production concern UkrOboronProm would be a step towards eliminating such corruption.
“It’s most important to look at Ukraine’s military industrial sector,” Carpenter said during the “How not to empower the aggressor?” panel. “Reforms should be aimed at defeating the corruption in the Ukrainian military sector. You cannot have an astronomical level of corruption.”
“This is the essence of how to defeat Russia – you will lose if you do not defeat corruption,” Carpenter said. He added that U.S. companies would not start investing in Ukraine as long as the situation in the sector remains unchanged.
The Lviv Security Forum, which opened on Nov. 30 at the Ukrainian Catholic University, is this year focusing on the world’s new security order. The forum’s panels featured intellectuals and experts in defense, geopolitics, and security from Ukraine, Canada, the United States, Germany, Estonia, and Moldova.
At the forum, Carpenter also said that Ukrainian defense industry still has an “enormous potential”, and is able not only to produce its own weapons for the war against Russia but also to export them.
“But you cannot do this as long as there is this astronomical level of corruption in this sector,” he said. “It’s time to get rid of UkrOboronProm.”
UkrOboronProm, founded in 2010, today includes around 130 state-run enterprises throughout the country and dominates the country’s military-industrial complex. Since 2014, it has been headed by Roman Romanov, an alleged long-time business partner of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The concern has been involved in multiple corruption scandals over the past few years.
Meanwhile, Dumitru Alaiba, a Moldovan economist and project director at Moldova’s Centre for Policies and Reforms, added that corruption is one of the weapons used by Russia “to torment (Ukraine) from within.”
“Of course there is a homegrown corruption, but there is a corruption made by Russia at the highest level.” the expert said. “We need an investigation at the international level – this level of corruption cannot be cracked from within.”
