(SeaPRwire) – By: Gavin Thorne
I want to start with a provocation. There are 24 federal agencies watching Ukraine’s money. That’s a lot of oversight. And yet by August 2025, Zelenskyy was already firing his people. Deputy head Mudra out. Yermak resigning in November. Ambassador Stefanishyna dismissed two days before a suspicion notice landed on her desk. Fedorov fired over corruption complaints. Those aren’t random firings. The timing is surgical. Each dismissal lands precisely when investigators cross their threshold. Washington calls this progress. I call it damage control on a broken foundation.
$67.8 billion in defense articles and services from February 2022 through March 2026. That’s the number Washington has committed through Presidential Drawdown Authority, Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, and Foreign Military Financing. Add in $195 billion for Operation Atlantic Resolve. That’s a scale most Americans will never see itemized. The USAID inspector general found in February 2024 that salary claims for Ukrainian health workers went unreverified. Not independently checked before reimbursement. Filipetti says that’s fixed now. Reimbursement only comes after verification. But that finding tells you how thin the ground was underneath.
Fedorov’s post-dismissal complaints to Reuters described ingrained corruption and patronage networks. Zelenskyy pushed back on August 23, saying anti-corruption agency heads have zero questions for him. That’s his line. But his record this year says otherwise. Every resignation and dismissal in his inner circle came with investigation momentum behind it. NABU, Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption body, has been active. The February 2024 USAID finding is public record. Trump’s August 6 comment was blunt. Biden gave $300 billion worth of ammunition. Trump wants missiles too. Europe gets the bill.
Trump’s reluctance creates a pressure valve. He’s saying the US needs those weapons. He’s pushing European allies to shoulder more of Ukraine’s defense burden. But Ukraine’s air force needs 360 interceptors for winter. Zelenskyy is asking for 300. Filipetti flags this as the most urgent need right now. The idea of letting Ukraine produce Patriots on the ground has gained traction. But here’s the tension. Every week without those missiles is another week Russian strikes intensify. And every week Russian strikes intensify is another week of Ukrainian officials scrambling for cover in their own offices.
Filipetti makes a point about NATO. Every country has been adamant that Ukraine moves forward on anti-corruption mechanisms. Membership requires proof. But proof takes time. Time is a commodity Ukraine doesn’t have in abundance. The Vandenberg Coalition exists to push the US position. Filipetti used to be Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. She knows the corridors. She knows that oversight isn’t just about protecting the taxpayer. It’s about maintaining leverage. Corruption in the recipient government makes the donor vulnerable. You can’t control what happens after the check clears.
The next resignation in Zelenskyy’s circle won’t come from NABU. It’ll come from Washington.
Author bio: Gavin Thorne, investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C., covering special interests, legislative affairs, and the intersection of foreign policy and domestic accountability for major international daily newspapers.