Zelenskyy's statement about Ukraine aid didn't reveal money laundering operation

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country’s military has received only a portion of the more than $175 billion in U.S. aid earmarked for Ukraine’s war against Russia. Now, critics of that U.S. support are floating an unsupported claim: that the funding has been misused through corruption or money laundering. 

"(Zelenskyy) just threw the whole Ukraine money laundering operation under the bus … by stating he’s received less than half of the over $177 billion in aid sent by the United States," one Facebook post said.

Elon Musk the billionaire X owner and Tesla and SpaceX CEO reshared a similar claim, which received more than 25 million views. "What if 58% of the U.S. taxpayer dollars sent to Zelensky never even reached Ukraine?" the post he reshared Feb. 2 said. "Where did it go? Did the CIA skim a cut? Did Ukrainian officials and generals pocket their share?"

But Zelenskyy’s statements, from a Feb. 1 Associated Press interview, aren’t proof of money laundering; they align with public data on the U.S. funding packages. 

The Facebook post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Musk, who has taken a leading role in President Donald Trump’s administration, has criticized U.S. aid to Ukraine and elsewhere. Leading the Department of Government Efficiency, a nongovernmental advisory board that Trump tasked with cutting federal costs, Musk has gained access to the U.S. Treasury’s payment system and is working to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, an independent government organization codified in law that provides humanitarian and disaster aid abroad. 

A freeze on most foreign assistance has not stopped U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Zelenskyy said Jan. 25. But humanitarian organizations in Ukraine have had to halt services as their funding has stopped.

Here’s why claims of money laundering in Ukraine don’t hold up. 

Congressional funding

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Congress has passed five bills to aid Ukraine’s war effort, totalling nearly $175 billion. Executive action and supplemental appropriations have provided additional funding. 

That money was not wired directly to Ukraine’s government, though. A Council on Foreign Relations breakdown shows that out of the $175 billion Congress has appropriated, about $100 billion worth of aid is being sent to Ukraine. The rest is funding U.S. activities associated with the war and other countries in the region, the Council on Foreign Relations said. 

The aid to Ukraine comes mostly as weapons shipments and other military support. Only about $33 billion was dedicated to direct budget support, the Council on Foreign Relations reported. About $70 billion of the value going directly to Ukraine is in weapons, equipment and other military support. 

A large portion of the money to support Ukraine’s war effort is spent in the U.S., Mark Cancian, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said in a 2023 analysis: It is going to domestic weapons manufacturers to produce weapons for Ukraine and to replace equipment that was already sent from American stockpiles. 

"Funding of US agencies, most of the funding for US military forces, most of the military equipment backfill and Ukrainian equipment purchases, and a part of the humanitarian assistance stay in the United States," Cancian said in the 2023 article.

Also, not all of the money dedicated for Ukraine has been spent yet, and Zelenskyy in the circulated video appeared to be discussing the funding the country has received to date. According to the Special Inspector General for Operation Atlantic Resolve, the multiagency watchdog that oversees Ukraine funding, $86.7 billion of the $130 billion obligated to Ukraine had been disbursed by Sept. 30, 2024. 

What Zelenskyy said

In the AP interview, Zelenskyy said the actual military assistance Ukraine has received to fight the war is lower than the top-line dollar figure in the aid packages.

The AP has posted portions of the interview, but Zelenskyy’s office posted the full hourlong video on its YouTube page in Ukrainian. A clip from that interview spread on social media with English captions. The video has a label from "@Smotri_Media," a Russian Telegram group.  

In the clip’s English translation, Zelenskyy said that the country received "just over" $75 billion in military aid. He noted that areas other than the military received U.S. aid.

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"One-hundred billion (dollars) of these 177, or 200, some people even say, we have never received," Zelenskyy said, according to the translation of the clip. "We are talking about specific things, because we got it not with money but with weapons. We got $70 something billion worth of it. There is training, there is additional transport. There are not only prices for weapons, there were humanitarian programs, social et cetera."

It was not clear what exactly Zelenskyy was including in his accounting of the military support Ukraine has received, but his comments align with the public data on how Ukraine aid is being spent. 

The money is not missing or laundered, as some posts claimed. It’s being spent as Congress intended: on U.S. weapons manufacturing, nonmilitary support in Ukraine and support elsewhere in the region.

That’s not to say that Ukrainian aid is never misappropriated. In 2024, Ukraine’s security services investigated Ukrainian defense officials over alleged corruption in a $40 million arms purchase. But Zelenskyy’s statements aren’t evidence of widespread fraud or money laundering in Ukraine aid. 

Inspectors general from the Defense and State departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development have overseen Ukraine aid and have published dozens of audits and assessments of funding programs since 2022. Their review has uncovered no widespread abuse of aid to Ukraine. The U.S. State Department said in August "there remains no credible evidence of illicit diversion of U.S.-provided defense equipment, direct budget support, or humanitarian assistance from Ukraine."

The Fraud and Corruption Investigative Working Group, under the special inspector general for Ukraine oversight, opened 61 investigations and closed 30 of them from July to September 2024. 

Our ruling

Social media posts claimed that Zelenskyy "threw the whole Ukraine money laundering operation under the bus."

Zelenskyy said Ukraine has received only about $75 billion in military assistance of the $175 billion the U.S. has dedicated to Ukraine aid. That’s in line with what researchers monitoring funding to Ukraine have observed.

A large portion of the money stayed in the U.S. and a smaller portion went to other countries in the region. 

We rate claims that Zelenskyy’s comments are proof of a "money laundering operation" False.