even ukraine admits ukraine is corrupt they armed genocidal maniacs in sierra leon   stories/sierraleone/context.html a ukrainian parliamentary inquiry concluded that between 1992 and 1998, ukraine lost $32 billion in military assets, in part through theft, discount arms sales and lack of oversight. (in comparison, ukraine's spending on legal arms for defense in 1999 is estimated to have been $500 million.) many of the missing weapons found their way into the hands of willing buyers in hot spots around the globe, from sierra leone to croatia. and as these arms proliferated, so did evidence of international criminal networks that sold arms from ukraine in flagrant violation of international sanctions and embargoes. theft and corruption in the military facilitated the flow of illegal weapons from ukraine. it was also facilitated by forged or falsified end-user certificates, the export documents that are supposed to record the final recipient of an arms shipment. the ease with which arms shipments moved through official channels has led many observers to conclude that prominent ukrainian officials were involved in the deals. in a 1999 report on eastern european arms dealing, human rights watch concluded that export-control authorities in the region were accepting arms brokers' documentation without question, either through "complicity or incompetence." other observers say responsibility goes straight to the top of the ukrainian government. writing in the christian science monitor, ukrainian political scientist taras kuzio said, "high-level ukrainian officials, if not directly dealing arms, are reportedly either smoothing the path for sales or at least looking the other way."
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