Two high-ranking Ukrainian officials named as suspects in embezzlement scheme uncovered by Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities this week, which involved the procurement of humanitarian aid, according to a POLITICO report.

Ukraine’s first deputy minister of agricultural policy and food and former deputy minister of economy allegedly embezzled 62 million UAH (about 1.5 million euros), according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

This is the latest case of corruption to be revealed in Ukraine since the war with Russia began in 2022. In January, two major corruption scandals centered on government procurement of military catering services and electrical generators rocked the country.

Instead of fearing the publicity and dimensions the new corruption case will take in the press, President Volodymyr Zelensky has launched an anti-corruption operation in an effort to show allies in the US and the EU that Ukraine is breaking with the her past. Earlier this month, he fired all regional recruiting officials amid reports of corruption, replacing them with soldiers who were on the front lines or wounded in combat.

The most recent program involved the purchase of food intended as humanitarian aid for regional military administrations and the populations of Donetsk, Kherson, Sumy, Zaporizhia, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava regions and the city of Kyiv, SAPO said.

According to the agencies, in one of the cases the first Deputy Minister of Agricultural Policy bought food at prices two to three times higher than the market value through a controlled company, which in turn bought the products at their true value from a Polish trader.

This cost the railway company of Ukraine Ukrzaliznytsia approx 719,000 euros between March and August 2022.

“He knew the real value of the products, as he regularly received relevant data from the state statistics agency,” NABU said in a press release. “He also knew about the possibility of buying products from Ukrainian traders, but deliberately ignored this fact.”

In another separate case involving both officials, food was once again bought at higher prices through an intermediary company, which, in turn, bought food at market value from a Turkish trader. The deputy finance minister hid evidence that there were better offers and pressured officials to illegally approve applications and invoices from the controlled companies.

As a result of this program, Ukrzaliznytsia overpaid the companies approx 841,000 euros.

“Having been received, the funds were transferred to a foreign shell company for further legalization,” NABU said. “Draft records detailing the distribution of ill-gotten gains were discovered during a search of a food program participant’s premises.”

The investigation is ongoing.