KYIV

WHILE THE HOPED-FOR gains on the battlefields of the Donbass have not materialised, Ukrainians say that they have managed to make huge strides in the struggle to be more corrupt than Russia.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been skimmed off defence contracts over the past four years, leaving President Zelenskyy with more than a little egg on his face and quite a bit of explaining to do to the countries which have been providing Ukraine with funds for its war effort.

“This is South Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, all over again,” says Colonel Stone Zircon, a former military contractor, whose company, Mob, is said to have driven Bashar Al Assad’s Syria into bankruptcy by buying corrupt officials and having them steal from the country’s treasury. “The Ukrainians ought to be looking at Moscow, to see if the Russians are not behind the graft. But this kind of thing is endemic in regimes which have to be propped up from outside. So much money and equipment arrives that no one knows where it’s going, and it’s easy to take a cut every time it passes your door. Ukraine had a reputation for corruption before all this, and we handed them a fortune and asked that they behave. Naive? What’s happened to all the weapons and ammo we sent? The F16s that were going to change the game? The tanks that were going to change the game? The artillery that was going to change the game? The missile systems that were going to change the game? Ukraine is becoming a black hole and then it’s all over who will say where all this treasure went?”