What happens to ATO aid from abroad?

Recently several volunteer organizations in Canada sent an open letter to the President, Prime Minister, and Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, in which they expressed their serious concerns about the findings of a recent audit of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which revealed that 382 million hryvnias are missing. The letter reads in part: “From volunteers at the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine we hear about a bureaucracy and failure in the implementation of Government’s contracts, the indifference of civil servants and non professional duties in all organs of power, corruption… For more than a year, in collaboration with the Government of Canada, we have been helping the Ukrainian military fighting in eastern Ukraine, wounded soldiers and civilians, refugees. Canadian volunteers have purchased tens of millions dollars’ worth of items and shipped thousands tons of cargo.”

Financial aid to ATO from Canada is waning because the Canadians cannot figure out what happens to their money and supplies in Ukraine, why the problem with battledress and footwear has not been solved. The Canadian volunteers strongly request that the Ukrainian government reply to these questions before July 31; they also expect the Ministry of Defense to present an “open and detailed plan of actions aimed at battling corruption at the defense ministry and to identify those who are responsible for the disappearance of almost 400 million hryvnias, as revealed by the most recent audit of the ministry.” They also expect “a comprehensive response from the President, the Government, and the Ukrainian parliament to include our demands in open transparent reporting and an open press conference in response to this request.” Otherwise they will “minimize [their] collaboration with the Ukrainian authorities” and “advise members of the Government and the Parliament of Canada to change their strategy on providing assistance to Ukraine.”

They Day asked one of the signatories, Ms. Antonina Kumka, Vice-President, Ukrainian Canadian Activist Society, what the last straw was (she visited Ukraine in May with a project to supply prostheses for wounded ATO soldiers; she had found physicians in Canada who agreed to come to Ukraine to share their professional expertise).

According to Kumka, Canadians have been hearing constantly from local Ukrainian communities, who wonder what is going on and question how much longer they can tolerate the attitude of the Ukrainian government, which is not doing anything. They finally had had enough. Canada has provided a great deal of assistance to ATO. After all, volunteers can do only so much. They cannot clothe and fund an army; that is the government’s responsibility. As a result, financial donations to volunteer organizations in Canada and, consequently, aid to the Ukrainian army have been on a dramatically decreasing curve. They simply cannot convince people to donate on a large scale. This does not mean that aid has stopped; people are still willing to help children and wounded veterans rather than the army, which is like a bottomless pit.

She and her colleagues will wait for a response from the Ukrainian government for a month, after which they will resend a copy of the letter. If there is no reply, they will organize a press conference with Canadian officials and MPs to discuss further aid to Ukraine. Less than a week after receiving the “Letter from Canadian Volunteers and Community Organizations,” the Ukrainian Embassy in Ottawa responded by offering a meeting with the activists. But the Ukrainian authorities have remained silent. Instead, Ukrainian volunteer organizations are prepared to comment on the situation. Some support and thank the Diaspora for taking this decisive step. Others are urging the Ukrainian defense ministry to become transparent and explain the situation with the ATO soldiers’ clothing and allowances to ease social tensions. Still others suggest that the Canadian volunteers seek partners among their excellent, time-tested Ukrainian counterparts, saying they should not send anything to the defense ministry, where everything just vanishes into thin air.

The Day wrote to Ukraine’s defense ministry, requesting a comment on the open letter from Canada. The ministry’s press service called to explain that they were waiting for the President, Prime Minister, and Speaker’s response, since the ministry was not among the addressees. Although this is true, the message addressed the ministry’s performance.

Nellie Stelmakh, director of the defense ministry’s logistics department (she is a volunteer attached to the ministry), offered more information. She said they were all very grateful for the aid from Canada, recalling the 30,000 combat uniforms that had actually secured the fourth round of mobilization. She added, however, that the Ukrainian army is not exactly without clothing or footwear, no matter what the Canadians write and believe to be the truth, but that no one will help us unless we do something ourselves. As for the issue of back pay in the army – something the Canadians are so concerned about – this issue is being resolved, she said, adding that the problem is that the army does not have electronic document circulation, so all redeployment procedures are recorded on paper, and this takes time. She went on to say that every effort is being made to provide the army with clothing and footwear, but that there is not enough money. The defense ministry had asked the government for another billion hryvnias, because the available funds provided for only 55 percent of the army’s needs.

 “This is just to provide for needs, but we have no money to create any reserves. First and foremost, we have to provide conscripts with clothing and footwear. Last year we received 25 percent of what we needed from the central budget, but 10 years ago it was just 5 percent. Our depots were empty by the time the war broke out. Now we have more manpower, and we have clothed the fourth, fifth, and the spring round of mobilization; we are filling the depots for the sixth round of mobilization. Once we have stored enough, our army will be clothed and equipped in a new way. We have many contracts to offer, but our light industry is not prepared to cope with them,” Stelmakh pointed out. She then talked about the contracts and arrangements that have been made to supply 160,000 summer combat uniforms and 200,000 pairs of shoes that are already being distributed. This year a new clothing standard was approved, she added, so combat uniforms will not burn on their wearers, along with a new design for a summer uniform (to be ordered within a couple of weeks). “Eighty thousand of these uniforms have been supplied, 155,000 have been ordered and 180,000 will be purchased. All this will be arranged in a month, I think,” Stelmakh assured.

She also objected to the part of the letter about the audit, insisting that the figures cited related to previous years. “We cannot be responsible for that embezzlement at the Ministry of Defense because it happened before our time.”

Her explanations sounded reasonable enough, but seeing is believing. So, we will wait and see.