{"id":85006,"date":"2023-09-03T23:50:47","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T23:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebritytidings.com\/?p=85006"},"modified":"2023-09-03T23:50:47","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T23:50:47","slug":"ukraines-zelensky-fires-defence-chief-amid-major-graft-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebritytidings.com\/world-news\/ukraines-zelensky-fires-defence-chief-amid-major-graft-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine&apos;s Zelensky fires defence chief amid major graft allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Ukraine&#8217;s President Volodymyr Zelensky fires defence chief amid allegations he signed off on inflated uniform deals for &#8216;tripled price&#8217; and replaces him with the head of Ukraine&#8217;s privatisation fund<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Defence minister Oleksii Reznikov was fired amid major graft allegations<\/li>\n<li>He will be replaced by the head of Ukraine&#8217;s main privatisation fund<\/li>\n<li>The major shakeup comes as Zelensky cracks down on corruption\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ukraine&#8217;s president\u00a0Volodymyr Zelensky has fired his wartime defence chief amid allegations he signed off on deals for military uniforms for a &#8216;tripled price.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Zelensky said on Sunday during his nightly address to Ukrainian citizens that he has dismissed defence minister\u00a0Oleksii Reznikov, 57, and will ask Ukraine&#8217;s parliament to confirm his replacement,\u00a0Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine&#8217;s main privatisation fund, this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Oleksii Reznikov has gone through more than 550 days of full-scale war. I believe that the ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and society at large,&#8217; he said in the video.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While Reznikov, who has been in charge of Ukraine&#8217;s defence ministry since before Russia invaded the country, was key to its war effort, he has been dogged by serious allegations of graft, which he has denied.<\/p>\n<p>The outgoing defence minister was accused of signing off on a deal with a Turkish company for winter uniforms that were &#8216;tripled&#8217; in value.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/03\/21\/75018883-12476411-image-m-14_1693774478363.jpg\" height=\"580\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Volodmyr Zelensky (pictured) said on Sunday during his nightly address to Ukrainian citizens that he has dismissed defence minister Oleksii Reznikov<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/03\/21\/75018887-12476411-image-a-10_1693774009710.jpg\" height=\"453\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Outgoing defence minister Oleksii Reznikov (pictured) was mired in several allegations of corruption<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/03\/21\/75018885-12476411-image-a-11_1693774011526.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Reznikov will be replaced by\u00a0Rustem Umerov (pictured), a 41-year-old politician from Crimea who has headed Ukraine&#8217;s State Property Fund since 2022<\/p>\n<p>Ukrainian journalists also proved that the military uniforms could&#8217;ve been bought at a significant lowered price.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He said in response to the allegations at the time:\u00a0&#8216;I urge everyone to treat information more critically and responsibly, because it misleads society and, worse still, it misleads our partners, as from outside you&#8217;d say it is a disaster.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Everything was done in accordance with the law on public procurement&#8230; [and &#8216;via tender procedures.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Reznikov was also mired by a top-level graft investigation, which alleged that Ukraine&#8217;s defence ministry had signed off on a food and catering contract worth\u00a013 billion hryvnias (\u00a3278 million) that was hugely inflated.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While Reznikov did not personally sign off on this deal, critics said he was ultimately responsible, and pointed to his zero-tolerance policy on corruption.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/03\/21\/75018989-12476411-image-a-12_1693774344351.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Reznikov was mired by a top-level graft investigation that alleged his ministry had signed off on a hugely inflated food contract<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/03\/21\/75018999-12476411-image-a-13_1693774407956.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Zelensky has been cracking down on corruption as Russia&#8217;s invasion continues<\/p>\n<p>He admitted at the time that his ministry&#8217;s anti-corruption services &#8216;failed in their task.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Reznikov, who has not yet commented on his dismissal, is set to be replaced by\u00a0Rustem Umerov, a 41-year-old politician from Crimea who has headed Ukraine&#8217;s State Property Fund since 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The fund&#8217;s role is to sell of publicly owned assets to the private sector in a big for &#8216;economic growth involving international and domestic investments.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The politician also helps represent Ukraine on the world stage, acting as the deputy head of its permanent delegation to the Council of Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The change of defence minister must be approved by parliament, but is likely to be supported by a majority of lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada. Zelenskiy said he expected parliament to approve Umerov&#8217;s appointment.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t the first time top-level Ukrainian politicians and officials have been booted out for allegations of graft and corruption.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Zelensky fired all officials in charge of military recruitment earlier this month in bid to root out corruption within the defence ministry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, a former deputy minister of economy was named as a suspect in an alleged embezzlement scheme involving the procurement of humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n<p>In May, the head of<span>\u00a0Ukraine\u2019s Supreme Court was detained in a bribery investigation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And in an earlier shake-up last summer, Zelensky had dismissed the director of his domestic intelligence agency and prosecutor general, also in the wake of allegations of corruption and mismanagement.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12476411\/Ukraines-President-Volodymyr-Zelensky-fires-defence-chief-amid-allegations-signed-inflated-uniform-deals-tripled-price-replaces-head-Ukraines-privatisation-fund.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ukraine&#8217;s President Volodymyr Zelensky fires defence chief amid allegations he signed off on inflated uniform deals for &#8216;tripled price&#8217; and replaces him with the head of Ukraine&#8217;s privatisation fund Defence minister Oleksii Reznikov was fired amid major graft allegations He will be replaced by the head of Ukraine&#8217;s main privatisation fund The major shakeup comes as Zelensky cracks down on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ukraine&amp;apos;s Zelensky fires defence chief amid major graft allegations - Celebrity Tidings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/celebritytidings.com\/world-news\/ukraines-zelensky-fires-defence-chief-amid-major-graft-allegations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ukraine&amp;apos;s Zelensky fires defence chief amid major graft allegations - Celebrity Tidings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ukraine&#8217;s President Volodymyr Zelensky fires defence chief amid allegations he signed off on inflated uniform deals for &#8216;tripled price&#8217; 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