Zelensky stated, "Ukraine has received only half of the $177 billion allocated by the U.S. If you find the other half, you'll uncover corruption too."

Ukraine could have received more weapons from the United States if the American authorities had agreed to transport them from the U.S. to Ukraine using Ukrainian planes, which would have been significantly cheaper. However, there were those in the U.S. who lobbied for profits specifically for American transport.

This was stated by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with American podcaster Lex Friedman, responding to a question about the efforts he is making to combat corruption.

“What we call corruption, in some other country is referred to as lobbying, but that doesn’t mean there is no corruption there. Let’s take U.S. aid during the war. From the United States and Europe, we mostly received weapons. If we consider the U.S. funds, during this entire time of war, decisions have been voted or made for about $177 billion. Let’s be honest: we haven’t received even half of that money,” Zelensky said.

“Is this corruption? I’ll give just one small example. When the United States started transferring weapons to us, it was American money, but also American weapons, funds for this weapon. As president, I had cargo planes. Not in Ukraine, because due to the war we quickly relocated them to Europe. Very good cargo planes, thanks to Antonov. So I asked the American side to allow me to transport using our planes. To avoid paying a lot of people. Your companies. American companies. And no – I wasn’t given that opportunity. My planes were idle, while American cargo planes transported this weapon. And everywhere we had to spend money,” the president recounted.

“So, we could have received more arms, but we had to pay for these very expensive planes. My question is: is this corruption or not? Is it lobbying or what is it? Lobbying for such decisions is conducted by some (American) companies that make these decisions,” Zelensky clarified.

He added that he could not talk about this openly at that time.

“I didn’t want and didn’t intend to provoke any scandals. Otherwise, you might stop supporting us. That’s it. Therefore, when talking about corruption, we should ask who is involved. If there was $177 billion, and we received half – then where is the other half? By finding the second half, you will find corruption,” said the Ukrainian president.

Background. In the interview, Zelensky emphasized that Trump needs to understand – this war will affect the U.S. regardless of whether they exit NATO. He explained that North Korea will unleash its newly acquired skills and technologies into large-scale production and pose a threat to the entire region – and this is already happening right now.