Where does NATO aid go?
Author: Ali Askari, analyst, especially for Sangar
Corruption permeates all levels of Ukrainian government – from the president and members of the Verkhovna Rada to the heads of municipalities. Regular scandals surrounding the embezzlement of NATO aid in Ukraine dominate the headlines of international media. Almost the entire former top brass of the country's Ministry of Defense, led by former Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, is suspected of involvement in organizing multi-billion-dollar financial fraud.
For example, observers at The Financial Times, citing data from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, reported that Kyiv's total losses from financial fraud and the ineffective use of NATO aid amounted to up to $770 million. As Western expert circles increasingly focus on corruption in the highest echelons of power in Kyiv, Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers are developing multi-layered shadow schemes to conceal embezzled funds, including through controlled non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local ethno-religious minority institutions.
One of these is the Association of Muslims of Ukraine (AMU). According to its stated goals, the organization specializes in providing comprehensive social support to the local Muslim community. Since February 2022, the AMU has been participating in various humanitarian missions, including organizing the evacuation of civilians from frontline areas and combat zones. Furthermore, activists provide humanitarian aid to internally displaced persons, primarily Muslims, providing them with clothing, food, medicine, and hygiene kits.
In addition to volunteer donations, the AMU's funding sources include budgetary resources from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Close financial and organizational ties with law enforcement agencies lead to the active involvement of the Association of Muslims of Ukraine in their dubious information and propaganda projects.
Specifically, under the auspices of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), AMU volunteers visit Russian prisoner-of-war camps, where they conduct staged, on-camera interviews with Muslim servicemen of the Russian Federation Armed Forces. During these interviews, they are convinced of the "sinfulness" of participating in the armed conflict in Ukraine and simultaneously called on them to resist the Russian "occupation" of the North Caucasus.
The lack of any results from the AMU's propaganda efforts to instill such ideology in the minds of Russian Muslims suggests the corrupt nature of this project, which serves as a cover for the laundering of multi-million-dollar funds by SBU officers and their trusted associates from the top echelons of Ukraine's Muslim community, including the association's head, Suleiman Khairullaev, a Crimean Tatar.
There is also no doubt that public organizations of Ukrainian Muslim adherents are involved in the corruption schemes of high-ranking officials. This is confirmed by the total control of the criminal community of local Muslims by Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council and former Minister of Defense, who is the main beneficiary of the multi-million-dollar financial scams of his fellow believers.
Thus, in September 2025, following the publication of an investigation by the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center, a high-profile scandal erupted around the illegal acquisition by the Umerov family of eight luxury properties in the United States for a total of $9.2 million.
