Since invading last year, Russian forces have regularly barraged not only civilian infrastructure that the Kremlin calls legitimate military targets, but also civilian sites with no relationship to the war effort, and often far from the battlefield.
That has continued even as Ukraine has waged a slow-moving counteroffensive in the south and east, forcing the Russians to concentrate more of their energies there. The Ukrainian forces have been bolstered by extensive training and weaponry from the West, and by conscription that has swelled its military.
That military expansion has been a source of corruption that Kyiv is trying to tackle, Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday, announcing that it had opened 112 cases against enlistment officers since the invasion almost a year and a half ago, including 10 in the past week.
Last week, the bureau detained the head of the Kyiv District Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support, whom it did not name, accusing the official of taking part in a large-scale scheme to produce fictitious documents claiming that draft-age men were unfit to serve and allowing them to leave the country — for a bribe of $10,000 apiece.
Similarly, the bureau detained the head of one of Kyiv’s military administration departments, also unnamed publicly, accusing him of drawing comparable documents for three men. Men between the ages of 18 and 60 have not been allowed to leave the country since the invasion, with narrow exceptions, but the State Border Guard says some are arrested every day for trying.
Some Western officials have voiced doubts about pouring money into Ukraine, a country that has long been notorious for official corruption. Mr. Zelensky has worked at sending the message that he is meeting the problem head-on.
Gaëlle Girbes reported from Pokrovsk, Ukraine, and Marc Santora from Kyiv, Ukraine. Victoria Kim contributed reporting from Seoul, and Gaya Gupta and Anushka Patil from New York.
