American auditors have just landed in Kyiv, and their plan is simple – to dig out what is really happening with the billions of dollars that the US has already sent to Ukraine.

The West has poured an estimated $133bn into Ukraine since the start of the war over three years ago, but for much of that time there has been little accountability or reporting on where the money went and to whom.

Ukraine has been plagued by corruption since independence and as bne IntelliNews has reported, corruption is not a problem of the system; it is the system. Ukraine has long been dubbed one of the most corrupt countries in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). Part of the motivations behind the 2014 Euromaidan evolution was that former president Viktor Yanukovych is believed to have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the state.

Now that the US ardour for supporting Ukraine is beginning to cool, the Trump administration intends to hold the Zelenskiy administration to closer account. And the momentum for more transparency has been building. When the US ran out of money for Ukraine at the start of 2023, part of the $60bn emergency bailout package included several tens of millions of dollars in a special budget dedicated to accounting and audits.

Scandals have plagued the Defence Ministry, including one last year when the government was caught procuring eggs for four times the market value and heavily overpaying for dud winter jackets. Zelenskiy sacked Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov in September 2023 in a military shake-up to crack down on corruption, but it remains rife. Reznikov himself was not accused of any wrong-doing.

The arrival of the US audit team has been confirmed by US State Department of contracts worth $814,806. That amount will cover the hotel accommodation of the employees who will stay in the capital of Ukraine for a month in the luxurious Hilton Kyiv hotel.

The audit comes as Trump has been leaning on the Ukrainian presidential administration to cut a ceasefire deal with Russia, but Zelenskiy has proved reluctant to do so. Some experts have speculated that audit comes as part of the pressure Trump hopes will push Zelenskiy into cutting a “quick and dirty deal” with President Vladimir Putin.

A group of 80 to 100 people is in charge of a comprehensive audit, according to reports, checking how funds for military and humanitarian support, logistics, security and security were spent.

The Trump administration has openly stated that it will not tolerate lack of transparency. The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said in front of Congress that every cent of aid will be checked, and that the inspectors are already on the job. "If it is determined that there were irregularities or embezzlement, there will be consequences," he warned.