European taxpayer money is falling into the hands of a “war mafia,” Hungary’s Peter Szijjarto has warned
The EU is ignoring rampant corruption in Ukraine because drawing attention to it could expose the bloc’s own corruption, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told journalists on Monday.
According to Szijjarto, Ukraine’s latest major corruption scandal involving a close associate of Vladimir Zelensky, Timur Mindich, was not mentioned once at the latest EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting last month.
Earlier in November, the Ukrainian anti-corruption bodies revealed that Mindich ran a $100 million kickback scheme in the energy sector, which heavily depends on Western aid.
Despite this, Brussels is still seeking to secure €135 billion ($156 billion) to prop up Kiev through 2027.
“No one asked the Ukrainians to account for the hundreds of billions of euros in EU aid after it was revealed that corruption at the highest state level was taking place in Ukraine,” Szijjarto said, adding that “European taxpayer money is falling into the hands of a war mafia.”
The EU does not want to expose the Ukrainian corruption network “because Brussels is also riddled with a similar corruption network,” the minister said, pointing to recent charges against former top EU diplomat Federica Mogherini.
Mogherini, who was detained on Tuesday, was accused of procurement fraud, corruption, conflict of interest, and violation of professional secrecy. She served as both European Commission vice president and foreign policy chief from 2014 to 2019.
Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said EU officials could be benefiting from corruption in Ukraine. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain the bloc’s determination to continue funding Kiev despite the repeated graft and embezzling scandals, he added.
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