The suspect, identified as Oleksandr Kheilo by media reports, is suspected of demanding money from executives of mining companies in western Ukraine who wanted to obtain the transfer of equipment used in mines in the east, close to the front line.
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A Ukrainian deputy energy minister has been remanded in custody for allegedly taking a half-million-dollar bribe, investigators said on Monday, August 12. According to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), the suspect, identified as Oleksandr Kheilo by media reports, demanded money from executives of mining companies in western Ukraine who wanted to obtain the transfer of equipment used in mines in eastern Ukraine close to the front line.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) welcomes the “revealed a large-scale corruption scheme.” The person responsible and his three alleged accomplices were arrested “caught red-handed” and risk “up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of their property”, according to the SBU statement. Shortly after this announcement, the Ukrainian government announced that it had dismissed Oleksandr Kheilo from his post, without however commenting on the accusations against him.
Since the Russian invasion began in February 2022, several corruption scandals have erupted in Ukraine, including in the Ministry of Defense and the military, leading to the dismissals and arrests of senior officials. In early May, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky resigned and was imprisoned after being accused of appropriating state-owned land.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has made the fight against corruption, an endemic evil in Ukraine for decades, a priority because it is one of the major conditions imposed by Brussels on kyiv as part of its application for membership in the European Union.
