Ukrainian “defense” was never “sacred”. However, what is happening in this most classified and best-financed area after the start of a full-scale invasion is still difficult to call an efficient and corruption-free system.
The completely understandable force majeure approach, when “everyone who could, carried everything they could” in the first year of the Russian offensive against Russia, has already cost our country lost or stolen billion hryvnias. And this is only what became public at some point and not without the help of journalists.
At the beginning of the year, we set ourselves the goal of investigating what weapons Ukraine buys abroad, how, at what price, and where are the problems?
It must be admitted that back then, in January-February 2024, almost all meetings and conversations ended in nothing but the fright of the interlocutors on these sensitive issues. The UP sources were most afraid to talk about “Spetstechnoexport”, a state-owned special importer company, which was taken under its control back in 2022 by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
Currently, after 8 months of wandering around offices, calls, acquaintances and comparison tables, it can be said that these issues are sensitive not only because they are about the procurement of weapons during the war. The cost of these weapons is often inflated several times, multi-billion dollar contracts are not always fulfilled on time, and sometimes there are even deals with signs of fraud.
Why? Because there is still no systematic and unified price control, and purchases are still handled not only by the Defense Procurement Agency, according to the promised NATO standards, but also by special importers unknown to anyone and accountable to almost no one. Companies that at the same time have the exclusive right to be representatives of our state abroad on this market.
The irony of fate lies in the fact that before the invasion, these companies sold Ukrainian weapons abroad (and that is why they had the status of special exporters), and after the invasion, they began to buy them abroad. But it is one thing to raise the price tag for a conditional Turkey or the UAE, and another thing when Ukraine is already paying for the weapons.
Thus, specific people or companies, hiding behind the screen of increasing defense capability, can, on the contrary, weaken it.
Last week, while on an official visit to the USA, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi noted: “We don’t have much time. The next few months will be decisive in the war.”
It is obvious that the parity of shells, mines, and other weapons, which after two and a half years of full-scale war remains unattainable for Ukraine, had, has and will have a key role in this period as well.
It is also clear that if there are procurement problems that are causing shortages of weapons on the battlefield, now is the time to address them quickly. To decide, regardless of who is behind this business, either unprofitable or profitable.
Our editors have a letter from Oleksiy Petrov, the head of the special importer until recently under the control of the GUR of the MoD “Spetstechnoexport”, to the Deputy Minister of Defense.
This letter indicates problems with the procurement of weapons. First, large defense contracts are not always completed on time, and secondly, public money is not always returned after non-fulfillment of contracts.
How Ukraine loses money and time during the great war, because it is forced to sue its own special importer, who was behind the Main Directorate of Intelligence, see in our new investigation.
Author: Mykhailo Tkach
