At about 7 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 7, CBS News posted a story, along with an accompanying video report, headlined “Why Military Aid to Ukraine Doesn’t Always Get to the Front Lines: ‘Like 30% of It Reaches Its Final Destination.’” The story quoted Jonas Ohman, founder and CEO of Blue-Yellow, a Lithuania-based organization, that has been funneling supplies to Ukrainian army units in Donbass since 2014, saying in April that, “All of this stuff goes across the border, and then something happens, kind of like 30% of it reaches its final destination.”
Ohman went on, “There are like power lords, oligarchs, political players,” describing the corruption and bureaucracy he has to work around. “The system itself, it’s like, ‘We are the armed forces of Ukraine. If security forces want it, well, the Americans gave it to us.’ It’s kind of like power games all day long, and so eventually people need the stuff, and they go to us.”
