Recently, in the information space, a lot of attention has been paid to procurement in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
In particular, during this year, the Ministry of Education and Culture was involved in scandals involving the purchase of “eggs for 17 hryvnias”, as if the Russian passport of the Ministry of Education official – Liev, and now we have a “fresh” informational excuse – the purchase of Turkish uniforms.
The initiators of all the aforementioned investigations and, accordingly, the “scandals” were journalists: Yurii Nikolov and Mykhailo Tkach, with the support of the Anti-Corruption Center and Vitaly Shabunin personally. In principle, this is logical, since the mentioned colleagues have always positioned themselves with the investigative genre and the fight against corruption.
However, let’s recall how most of their investigated cases ended:
– the case of “eggs for 17 hryvnias” – for a year we have not had a single court decision and corresponding confirmation of the “facts” cited by journalists – investigators;
– the case of Liev’s Russian passport turned out to be a fake, for which the respected journalists had to apologize. However, I can only imagine what their apology is worth compared to the amount of dirt that was poured on Liev;
– the matter of “purchasing a Turkish uniform” is not new. It was known about her since 2022, but none of the facts given by the journalists were confirmed: the uniform was purchased at market prices in accordance with the terms of the agreement, the quality characteristics are as stated, there were no complaints from the militarythere are no court decisions that would confirm the facts given by the journalists.
Could this suggest other tasks facing colleagues? Of course, yes.
Personally, I have always been sympathetic to Mykhailo Tkach and Vitaly Shabunin. Once upon a time, we even worked on a joint case and highlighted the “virtuous” characteristics of candidates for the responsible position of head of NABU. Then, our views converged. And today, on the subject of purchases, no. I will explain why with one example.
So, in February 2023, when the “scandal” with “eggs” broke out, the Ministry of Defense offered representatives of the Central Committee to join the creation of an anti-corruption council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A good initiative, in my personal opinion.
However, the Anti-Corruption Center ignored the invitation. Although, representatives of this respectable anti-corruption organization had and have the opportunity to officially join the systematic fight against corruption in the defense department.
Why did this happen? In my personal opinion, it is easier for representatives of the Communist Party of Ukraine and a number of the journalistic community to criticize, shuffle papers, and create “sensations” for purposes known to them.
It is much more difficult to work in the field of meeting the needs of the Armed Forces during the war.
To this end, I suggest to Oleksiy Reznikov to consider the issue of appointing Mykhailo Tkach and Vitaly Shabunin to official positions in the Department of Logistics and Technical Support of the Ministry of Education and Culture and to transfer full responsibility to them.
My honor, Dmytro Kravchenko
