There's a way of telling this war's story that's become almost ritualistic: strike summary tables, general staff statements, tones of mourning or pathos depending on which side of the broadcast. All of it is true. But over four-plus years of full-scale war, another layer has accumulated—less ceremonial and far more honest. A layer in which the war appears as what it is for very many of its participants and observers: a gigantic business process with budgets, contractors, risk management, informal arrangements, and very human greed.
This doesn't mean "actually nobody's fighting for anything, only for money"—such a formulation would be as much a caricature as the official one. People on the front lines die for real, cities burn for real, and no corruption scandal cancels that out. But between trench and trench exists an entire infrastructure of decisions—who gets the contract, whose factory won't be hit, whose oil gets through, whose gas goes through the pipe—and this infrastructure lives by the laws not of military discipline but of economic interest. This text is an attempt to walk through that infrastructure with open eyes: through documented traces, through confessions, through scandals too large to hide. And where documentation doesn't exist but the pattern is visible to the naked eye—to speak about it directly, honestly marking: here we're already in the realm of justified suspicions, not proven facts.
One warning before we start. This war is unique in that each side conducts its own parallel reality in the media. Ukrainian media operate under wartime censorship and patriotic mobilization; Western outlets receive information largely from Ukrainian officials (and from their own governments, which have their own interests); Russian media—under complete state control. None of these three streams is designed to show what's behind the curtain. So below we assemble the picture from what leaked through all three filters—from court cases, leaks, auditor reports, investigations, and accidental slips. The picture comes out uneven. But that unevenness makes it plausible: smooth stories are told by spin doctors, reality always has rough edges.
Let's start with the most documented story about how military targets are chosen not on a map but in economic spreadsheets.
In spring 2024, Ukrainian drones delivered a series of successful strikes on Russian oil refineries—from the Baltics to the Volga region. From a military standpoint, this was one of the war's smartest campaigns: refineries mean money in the Russian budget, fuel for the army, and a target Russia can't reliably cover with air defense across seventeen million square kilometers. By summer 2024, by estimates, Russia was losing 600,000 barrels of daily refining capacity. Perfect strategic trend.
And then the arithmetic of American elections intervened. Financial Times on March 22, 2024 published material citing sources in Ukrainian intelligence and SBU: the US asked Ukraine to stop strikes on Russian refineries because it could raise global oil prices and provoke escalation before the November elections[10]. Washington Post in April added: the request "irritated" Zelensky, and inside the administration debates raged about whose line this was—Energy Department, advisors, or Biden's campaign[16]. Bob McNally, former White House energy advisor, formulated the essence with cynical directness worthy of a quotebook: "Nothing scares an incumbent American president like a spike in gas prices in an election year"[10].
Let's reread this story slowly, because it contains the whole skeleton of the theme. Ukraine—a country under attack, whose cities are being bombed—received from its senior partner a request not to hit the enemy's military target because it's inconvenient for a third party. Not because the strikes were illegal. Not because they didn't work. But because they could affect gas prices in Michigan. Official Washington, of course, presented this as "coordination" and "ensuring sanctions effectiveness." But the real mechanics were visible to the naked eye: the list of permissible targets was adjusted to the United States' electoral calendar. The war continued—but in this specific episode, the limits of what was acceptable were determined not only by military necessity but by a superpower's economic calendar.
What happened next is also telling. Restrictions tightened and loosened—in November 2024, already after the election, Biden suddenly authorized Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with ATACMS, a decision that for months had been considered unacceptable escalation. The red line shifted in one day after it stopped being electorally significant. Nobody explained what changed militarily. Something else changed: Biden no longer feared gas prices.
If the first story shows how targets are chosen for someone else's elections, the second shows how entire classes of targets can be taken off the table by agreement that almost nobody knew about.
In August 2024, Washington Post released material that became one of this war's most underestimated stories. It turned out Ukraine and Russia were preparing to send delegations to Doha to sign—through Qatari intermediaries—an agreement on mutual cessation of strikes on energy infrastructure of both countries[11]. Not a ceasefire. Not peace. A separate module: "we don't touch power plants and substations, everything else—we continue." Kyiv's Kursk operation disrupted these negotiations a few days before the scheduled round[11], but the track itself didn't die: in October FT wrote about ongoing consultations, and in November Reuters confirmed Kyiv's readiness for Qatari mediation[12][13].
Here it's important to understand the scale of cynicism in this construction—from both sides. For Moscow, "energy truce" meant preserving export infrastructure through which military revenues flow into the treasury: meaning the bombing of Ukrainian cities could continue, but the pipes feeding the war—safe. For Kyiv the motive was double: substations are needed for civilian winter survival, but also—and this was rarely spoken aloud—Ukraine's energy sector was already entangled in its own commercial interests, from generating companies to traders, and every strike on it cost someone money. In the end, negotiations stalled—but the very fact of their existence created a precedent: separate segments of the war economy can be taken out of the line of fire by an agreement the public learns about after the fact, if at all. Civilians die in Kharkiv—but pipeline electrification isn't discussed because it has status. If this isn't hypocrisy, what is?
Moreover, this mechanism worked in reverse. When Ukrainian drones in 2025–2026 did launch a mass campaign against Russian oil (about its successes—below), Moscow diplomacy immediately began demanding the return of an "energy pause" on new terms—that is, to formalize a moratorium on strikes against what remained of Russian refining. The target list, it turns out, was always a subject of negotiation. The negotiation just didn't happen publicly but through intermediaries, and the stakes in it were expressed not only in human lives but in dollars per barrel.
Now—a story about how one oil pipeline became the perfect model of how military decisions are made under pressure from monetary and political interests of third parties.
The Druzhba pipeline—a Soviet artifact running from Russia through Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia. While a war raged in which Russia was killing Ukrainians, this pipeline continued pumping Russian oil across Ukrainian territory—under a transit scheme approved before the invasion. Kyiv formally had no right to touch it: transit contracts, EU guarantees, obligations to partners. And here emerges the first layer of cynicism: across the territory of a country under invasion, oil from the aggressor country flowed smoothly because that's how it was signed and because Hungary with its EU veto made this pipe politically untouchable.
Viktor Orbán turned Druzhba into an instrument of double blackmail. Within the EU, Budapest blocked sanctions packages, aid to Ukraine, and anything that could harm Moscow—hiding behind energy dependence on this very pipe. When in 2025–2026 Ukraine began striking the pipeline—in August 2025, then pumping stations in February 2026—Orbán really raised hell: Hungary threatened to block a 90-billion EU loan to Ukraine, personally complained to Trump, released 250 thousand tons of oil from strategic reserves, and demanded the European Commission "protect transit"[26][27][15]. Ukraine meanwhile stated the pipe was also used to supply the Russian army—a claim logically plausible for oil infrastructure of a warring state but not separately proven in open materials.
The point is that the targets of this campaign were chosen exactly like Russian targets: not only from the military table but from the table of political leverage. A strike on Druzhba is simultaneously a strike on Russian revenues and a message to Budapest: your veto has a price, and we know how to set it. Foreign Policy wrote directly: "Ukraine's strike on oil hub hits Hungary too"[15]—as if it's a side effect, though that was precisely part of the design. There are no civilian casualties here, and in that sense the campaign is cleaner than others. But the mechanics are the same as in the Doha negotiations: military decisions are made with constant regard for how they'll reflect in others' balance sheets—Hungarian, European, American. A war waged by accountants is a war in which even a pipe with aggressor oil is touched not when possible but when calculated.
Ironic bonus: while Hungary threatened Ukraine with aid blockage, it continued building the Paks II nuclear plant with Russia—a project OSW called "a new breach in Western sanctions"[38]. Every player in this puzzle—Kyiv, Budapest, Brussels, Moscow—publicly insists on principles while privately negotiating their segments of ruthlessness.
Time to talk about the most unpleasant thing—what happens inside a warring side when a state on survival becomes a field for fantastic profits.
Operation Midas. In November 2025, Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau (NABU) exposed a scheme that deserves a separate novel. At the center—Energoatom, the state operator of nuclear power plants in a country at war, with turnover exceeding 200 billion hryvnia. The scheme was called "the barrier": contractors working for Energoatom were obligated to kick back 10–15% of the contract—otherwise their payments were blocked and supplier status annulled[30]. The money—about 100 million dollars during documentation—was laundered through an office in central Kyiv belonging to the family of former deputy, now current Russian senator Derkach[30][31]. Note the irony even a screenwriter wouldn't invent: an anti-Russian state during wartime laundered money through the family structure of a sitting senator of the aggressor country. Among those mentioned in investigation materials—high-ranking officials, a former energy minister, co-owner of Zelensky's former "Kvartal 95" TV studio Timur Mindich, and an ex-vice prime minister[31]. Mindich reportedly left the country; this and other accusations must be distinguished as investigative suspicions, not final judicial conclusions. NABU published photos of bags of cash and reported 1000 hours of wiretaps. Ministers resigned after the scandal[31].
A separate layer of this scandal—kickbacks were collected specifically from contractors building fortifications to protect energy infrastructure from Russian strikes[31]. That is, money allocated so Russian missiles wouldn't leave the country without electricity partially settled in bags of cash. This isn't "costs of war." This is its conversion into a feeding ground.
Mobilization as a market. The second unclosed wound—conscription. By August 2026, Ukrainian police reported 76 accused military enlistment office employees and nearly 2500 identified cases of illegal exemption from service—fake medical certificates, deletion from registries, "help" with foreign travel[35]. The parliamentary ombudsman publicly estimated a "turnkey service" for exit at 50–70 thousand dollars[42]. In wartime this means roughly the following: the ability not to die in a trench is sold to those who can pay, and carried by those who can't. No more concentrated form of social cynicism exists. Meanwhile, the very framing of the question—"how much does survival cost"—is so taboo in Ukrainian public space that these figures are published by ombudsmen and police but don't become the basis for any policy.
Reconstruction is already being divided. The third story—the longest-term. Reconstruction is hundreds of billions of dollars, and the fight for them is already underway, not waiting for the war's end. Antikor writes about how Akhmetov's Metinvest "under the guise of charity monopolizes postwar reconstruction for billions"[41]; Intent—about Mykolaiv region roads repaired "for 2 billion" by a deputy's firm[41]. In parallel, the US signed a deal with Kyiv on mineral resources—a reconstruction fund where Ukraine gives up a share of revenues from ores and gas, and American companies get priority[43]. Formally—a "platform for security investments." In essence—a futures contract on the country's postwar economy, signed during the war. There's something almost Shakespearean in the fact that the resources of a country for which its citizens are dying are pledged in advance to a third party as a guarantee for continued aid. Nobody calls it tribute. But accounting always recognizes tribute.
To this should be added the 2024–2025 energy scandal around weapons purchases through "specialized importers" with inflated prices, long-standing cases around the road fund, and chronic overpayment on state defense orders. Each case separately can be explained. But their sum adds up to a system in which war is not only tragedy but a unique window of opportunity for those standing near the budget flow. War liberates from tenders (secrecy!), from oversight (martial law!), from criticism (not the time, we're at war!). Perfect environment. And it wasn't created for this, but they use it with pleasure.
It would be hypocritical to describe corruption only in the victim-combatant. The Russian system is the founder of this genre, and war only exposed what was always there.
First of all—the shadow fleet. Hundreds of old tankers with opaque owners, disabled transponders, and insurance from shell companies haul Russian oil to India and China bypassing the price cap[37]. AP in January 2025 wrote about how this scheme preserves oil money flows—meaning the very existence of the war. KSE-tracker records that the shadow fleet accounts for the lion's share of exports. Many such tankers are linked to opaque structures that Western sanctions name but don't always manage to stop. The sanctions system is built so that it makes trade more expensive rather than stopping it: intermediaries, resales, discounts—all this is someone else's margin built into the war. India and China buy Russian oil at a discount and refine it into fuel that partially returns to Russia (in summer 2026, Moscow, after strikes on its refineries, for the first time in modern history imported gasoline—from Turkey and India's Vadinar refinery, meaning refined from its own oil)[33]. Full circle: oil sold at a discount returns home as expensive imported gasoline, and someone's margin sits in every link of this cycle.
Next—stolen grain. Bellingcat documents a fleet of vessels exporting Ukrainian grain from occupied Crimea under Russian flags and with disabled AIS—including to Yemen controlled by Houthis, through official UN inspection that formally "has no authority" to check sanctions[28]. Ukrainian grain, relabeled as Russian, reached World Food Programme suppliers[28]. Hunger in the third world as the endpoint of theft—and no institution, including the UN, finds a mechanism to stop it. Because every institution has its own budgetary and political interests, and they're always prioritized over abstract justice.
Finally—property redistribution in occupied territories. Novaya Gazeta Europe and other investigations documented how on captured lands Ukrainian enterprises—factories, agro-holdings, ports—are reregistered to "new owners" with Moscow roots through puppet procedures[39]. This isn't marauders' chaos, this is institutionalized raider seizure with stamps and registries. War as a mechanism of expropriation—its most ancient meaning, just formatted in modern style.
Now about those who "help." Not because help isn't needed—but because help has its own economics that people don't like to talk about aloud.
Defense industry. Reuters in October 2025 wrote directly: "Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East boost profits for US arms makers"[40]. Shares of Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics—at multi-year highs. European countries, frightened by Russia, rush to order American systems, opening factories on their territory. This doesn't mean Western weapons aren't needed by Ukraine—they are needed and they work. It means that the war's continuation has very solvent beneficiaries unrelated to any warring side. A system in which every missile is someone's quarterly report doesn't rush to peace not from evil intent but simply because peace has no lobbyists comparable to the industry.
Energy arbitrage. Stopping Russian transit on January 1, 2025 (which Carnegie describes as the departure of an era[32]) redistributed flows in favor of American LNG: new plants in the US are just coming online, and Europe now pays for the same thing—but to different suppliers, more expensively. Ukraine meanwhile remains without transit revenues (2 billion a year until 2025—it was a strange anachronism but still revenue). Everyone lost in their own way, someone won—and won not on the war but on the flow restructuring the war accelerated.
Moral leasing. And the most subtle. Western aid to Ukraine is accompanied by rhetoric of "we're doing everything possible." But real decisions—about missile range, pace of deliveries, sanctions against specific oligarchs—were always made with adjustments for "don't provoke Moscow," "don't raise prices," "don't derail the deal with Riyadh." Even sanctions against Russian oil tankers were introduced so as not to anger India. The result is a structure in which Ukraine receives aid exactly in the volume that allows it not to lose, but not in the volume that allows it to win—and Western economies earn from all this uncertainty. This isn't conspiracy, this is equilibrium of interests, and it's stable exactly as long as Ukraine pays for it with lives.
Let's return to where we started our conversations—to strikes on retail chains, because here the entire construction "money + cynicism + lies" is visible plain as day.
In July–August 2026, Ukrainian drones delivered a series of strikes on Wildberries logistics hubs—"Russian Amazon," through which 52% of the country's online orders pass[29]. In two weeks, by Ukrainian source estimates, about 16 of 26 main hubs were taken out—two-thirds of the network[29]. Kyiv's formal justification: Wildberries sells dual-use goods—fiber optics for FPV drones, body armor, helmets marked "tested in the SMO," and is linked to military supplies[36]. Meduza analyzed these claims: some confirmed, some look like a stretch[36]. Kyiv Independent asked the question directly: is a marketplace a legitimate military target?—and didn't give a definitive answer[29].
Now let's place next to this the Russian version of the same months: strikes on Ukrainian Epicentr (17 attacks, 10 destroyed hypermarkets, logistics, ceramics factory) with the formulation "military aid warehouses"—while those killed there were salespeople and visitors, and surveillance footage showed people at workplaces[1][2]. Both against Russian retail warehouses and Ukrainian ones—identical justification logic: "there's something military there"—and identical reality: civilian infrastructure and people. Each side converts the other's retail into a "military object" because it's cheaper than acknowledging a strike on the civilian economy. And inside each country this also works as a signal to business: your property is protected exactly to the extent you're politically convenient. Epicentr with its traces of business in occupied Crimea[21][22]—an ideal target for Kyiv against these suspicions? No—for Moscow, which finds it convenient to explain strikes with "dual use." Wildberries with its Defense Ministry connections—an ideal target for Kyiv. Nobody hits the shopping centers of those who are friends.
This is the arithmetic of modern targets: it includes not only military value but economic damage, political message, and internal signal. Money isn't the only factor, but it's a constant factor. And when militaries on both sides say "we're hitting military infrastructure," they're not lying exactly until the second you start looking at who owns that infrastructure and what it brings in peacetime.
The most dangerous conclusion from all this—"everyone lies equally, so truth doesn't exist." This is exactly the trap any propaganda calculates on driving a thinking person into. Truth exists, and it looks like this.
People really are dying. No contract, no transit, no profit cancels the fact that concrete people die in this war—at the front and under rubble. The cynicism described above doesn't "explain" their death—it multiplies it.
The sides aren't symmetrical. Yes, Ukraine has corruption—proven, investigated, publicly discussed, with ministerial resignations. Russia has corruption built into the system at the constitutional level, and there's nobody to investigate it. Yes, both sides apply "military objects" rhetoric to cover strikes. But one side fights on its land, the other came to someone else's. Lack of symmetry in war causes doesn't cancel asymmetry in cynicism within each—and doesn't give the right to turn studying one side's corruption into justification for the aggressor or vice versa.
Honesty mechanisms exist—that's why scandals are visible. Operation Midas was exposed by Ukraine's own anti-corruption bureau. Bellingcat documents stolen grain with open data. FT and WaPo publish what governments would prefer not published. Precisely because in part of the world verification institutions work, we even know about the "barrier," Doha negotiations, bags of cash. Where institutions don't exist—we know nothing, and that's also important to remember when comparing "everyone lies."
Suspicion isn't knowledge. Everything in this text marked as justified suspicion (and there are many such places: selectivity of strikes on "convenient" targets, informal agreements on asset immunity, conversion of military aid into commercial positions) remains suspicion until documents appear. The text's task isn't to convince you everything's decided but to show exactly where to look and what questions to ask. Silence that looks too right is also evidence.
There's an old front-line principle: war is too important to trust to the military. Four years of this war added a continuation: it's too profitable for too many to trust its words.
The war waged by accountants doesn't end when the front collapses. It ends when the balance closes—when sides, intermediaries, and beneficiaries calculate that continuation costs more than stopping. And that's why it's so important to look at it not only through the sight and grief but through spreadsheets: to see who pays, who earns, whose pipe is untouchable, whose warehouses burn, whose stocks rise. Not to cynically multiply everything by money—but to stop allowing those who call themselves principles to hide percentages behind them.
This war's truth isn't in parade summaries or telegram channels with "backstage." It's in the gap: in interviews not given; in documents not signed; in targets not touched; and in money that in any scenario finds its owners. Accountants, unlike soldiers, survive to the end of any war. Worth at least knowing them by sight.