The arrests came days after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s U-turn on an effort to neuter anticorruption agencies.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies said they had uncovered a major graft scheme involving inflated military procurement contracts, just two days after Ukraine’s parliament voted to restore the agencies’ independence.

The essence of the scheme was to conclude state contracts with supplier companies at deliberately inflated prices,” it said, adding that the offenders had received kickbacks of up to 30% of a contract’s cost.