Aftenposten focuses on corruption in Ukraine

By inyheter.no - Helge Lurås Chief editor 16/06/2023

Going against the current once again.

A week ago iNyheter wrote about Aftenposten's "admission" that Ukraine's counter-offensive encountered difficulties. The newspaper was quite early on with what is now difficult to hide from most people.

We wrote about the article because it stood out from the majority of articles in Norway and other Western countries that one can get the impression have painted the Ukrainian military forces in a positive light and correspondingly blackened the capacity and morale of the Russians. The consequences are that the public is misled.

It has become so because the West, including the media, has chosen sides. Thus, it is felt to be important to keep morale up even among one's own audience, because Western countries are after all financing this war for Ukraine.

This week, the admissions that the Russian resistance is strong and little progress is being made have been more widespread in the Western media, although there is still little in the Norwegian media.

The same journalist in Aftenposten who was behind the article about the counter-offensive, Per Anders Johansen, was co-author of another article on Thursday which also deviates from the usual, servile "propaganda" that is served otherwise.

“The coach was crammed full of dollars. The picture shows that something is seriously wrong in Ukraine", is the headline of the article.

And it concerns massive corruption in the Western-backed country. And they started with the head of the country's Supreme Court himself.

"It is easier said than done to fill a sofa with dollar bills to the value of NOK 35 million. According to the police, the money found on the sofa in the office of the head of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, Vsevolod Knjazev, was a bribe. Now he is accused of having received the money in connection with a trial in April, where the judge ruled in favor of a Ukrainian oligarch," begins Aftenposten and shows the photos of the money in the sofa, photos taken by the anti-corruption police in Ukraine.

"While Ukrainian soldiers are fighting for their lives at the front, corrupt officials continue to rob the country," affirms Aftenposten in the preamble.

- There will be an end to corruption. It is gone now because now we all stand together, said President Volodymyr Zelenskyj last November, the newspaper reminds readers.

He was wrong.

The money in the sofa is "small money" compared to several other scandals, writes Aftenposten further.

They can tell that the "many small and big revelations" that come in Ukrainian media "raise extra fury when young soldiers die at the front every single day."

These are descriptions we rarely see in the Western press. Here, the stories are mostly about warlike people who stand together, and where the soldiers have good morale.

“Imports of expensive luxury cars to Ukraine have more than doubled since Putin's invasion. What happened? Large amounts of humanitarian and military aid were stuck in endless queues in the corrupt customs system. Customs officials demanded bribes. To solve this, the customs rules were abolished. But that created a new problem.

In the first week after customs freedom was introduced, 14,300 cars were imported. For example, a businessman in Lviv imported 45 luxury cars. He sold them on to rich Russians via Belarus."

Aftenposten has several examples:

"Several Ukrainian companies received NOK 2.7 billion in advance last year to supply military equipment. Including grenades. The equipment was never delivered.”

They also describe "five ways to defraud Ukraine"

"The list of small and large scandals in the shadow of the war is long."

1. Drones. Every week, the Ukrainian army loses 2,500 drones. Corruption and bureaucracy make it difficult to import new ones. The deliveries end up in the customs queue. - The only way to solve it is to pay bribes, a drone manufacturer tells the online newspaper Censor.net.

2. False medical reports. In a number of cities, officers, and hospitals have been paid handsomely to issue false medical certificates. This is how men avoid being drafted into the army, according to the security service SBU.

3. Bribes to drop the front. In one brigade, the police revealed that soldiers could pay the officers to avoid being sent to the front. The price was 75,000 hryvnias - around NOK 22,000.

4. Deer eggs and potatoes. When the war started, a fringe company got a giant contract to supply food to the army for almost four billion kroner. In January, it emerged that prices were up to two to three times higher than in shops in Kyiv.

5. Rebuild fraud. At the weekend, Zelenskyj had to fire the military commander in the "hero city" Hostomel, where Putin's dream of a lightning war was stopped. The city's top military commander is accused of stealing money, which was supposed to go toward building up the city

That the article was actually appreciated by Aftenposten's readers is shown by the newspaper's own overview of "Most read"

The article by Per Anders Johansen and Helene Skjggestad is number 1 in the last 24 hours.

Aftenposten's article stands out so much that iNyheter believes it has news value in itself.

Helge Lurås Chief editor