The State Bureau of Investigation has announced suspicions against the former head of one of the Ministry of Defense's departments and two officials from a state enterprise for supplying 200 defective machine guns to the front. Media reports suggest that the individual in question is Oleksandr Liiev, who served as the acting director of the Department of Military-Technical Policy of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, along with two officials from a company involved in arms imports. UNN decided to investigate the case and the nature of the accusations.
The Office of the Prosecutor General noted in a press release that the defendants are "suspected of embezzlement and misappropriation of property, as well as obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (part 5 of Article 191, part 2 of Article 114-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). Additionally, the heads of the state enterprise are also suspected of official forgery (part 2 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)."
The content of the OGPU’s announcement reveals that in 2022, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine entered into contracts with the state enterprise for the supply of 400 DShK machine guns for a total of 193 million UAH. However, the state enterprise only delivered 200 heavy machine guns, all of which lacked proper labeling and were of poor quality.
"When used in combat conditions, these machine guns malfunctioned and could cause significant harm to military personnel," the OGPU statement says.
Later, the State Bureau of Investigation, which is conducting the investigation, clarified that the inquiry began in 2023 and is still ongoing. According to the SBI, some of the machine guns were found to be incapable of continuous firing.
UNN, relying on its own sources, gathered information behind these official statements.
As we have learned, this concerns a contract from March 2022 between the Ministry of Defense and the state enterprise "Spetstechnoexport" (which is part of the state company "Ukroboronprom") for the supply of 400 DShK machine guns with a caliber of 12.7 x 108 mm and an additional 26 KPVT machine guns, along with various ammunition and shells.
The total cost of the weaponry that was to be supplied exceeded 6 million euros, with the machine guns alone costing over 193 million UAH. The order was to be fulfilled by the Slovak company "XXeurop s.r.o.", which specializes in supplying various types of military equipment and their modernization.
At that time, the signatory from the customer side, namely from the Department of Military-Technical Policy, Weapon Development, and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defense, was its then-director Vladyslav Shostak.
Just a few days later, the Ministry of Defense made a preliminary payment of 97% of the contract amount. The delivery was supposed to be executed promptly, but as UNN reported, the process began to drag on. However, in May 2022, the contractor finally delivered 200 DShK 12.7 mm machine guns (produced by the Slovak company Kolarms s.r.o., which supplies arms to the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and other countries, and whose DShK machine guns are in service with the Slovak army), which were placed in the arsenal of one of the military units.
The batch of weapons lacked the so-called forms (a document that records the movement of weapons, their history in military units, combat inspection results, repair information, etc.). Therefore, initially, the entire batch was accepted by the military unit in Ukraine for temporary storage.
Subsequently, in June 2022, "Spetstechnoexport" partially provided documents for the batch of delivered machine guns, while for the undelivered batch (amounting to 200 units), they proposed to return the funds to the Ministry of Defense.
By August, the acting head of the Department of Military-Technical Policy, Weapon Development, and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defense became Oleksandr Liiev. The aforementioned machine guns were still stored in the military unit's warehouse, as they did not have all the necessary forms and therefore could not be handed over to our military for operational use.
As Liiev explained in an open statement published on his Facebook page, the acceptance of weapons is handled by military personnel who understand the specifics, not by employees of the Department of Military-Technical Policy.
"They wrote that the machine guns were accepted based on quality and that there were no issues. But there was a remark that the forms were missing," Liiev stated.
As we learned, a commission from the military unit where the machine guns were stored did indeed compile an act stating that these were DShKM machine guns. It is worth noting that a source in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine told UNN that Slovak-produced DShKM machine guns are permitted for use in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Later, the act mentioned above was signed and also certified by representatives of the Ministry of Defense, and only after that was it submitted for Liiev's signature.
It should be noted that it is not the responsibility of the Department head to personally check the weapons, which, as we all understand, were being procured in large quantities at that time, and still are.
Finally, when the forms were received, the commission of military personnel signed the act, and the Department staff certified it, Liiev signed the final documents for the acceptance of the machine guns into service.
"By that time, 'Shaheds' were flying in, and there was an order - urgently transfer everything that is in the warehouses, everything that is heavy caliber, to the troops. I contacted 'STE' ('Spetstechnoexport' - ed.) and demanded that they urgently prepare these forms and provide them to the military unit. They did so, brought the forms, handed them over to the military unit, after which the military unit wrote to me that the machine guns were accepted, and there were no complaints. My Department staff prepared the acceptance-transfer act, and I signed that act," Liiev described this situation in his open statement.
The machine guns were handed over to our defenders at the beginning of 2023 to combat the "Shaheds," which Russia began to use for mass attacks on our country.
After some time, complaints began to come from certain military units stating that the machine guns had deficiencies and could not fully perform their functions. This became the basis for opening a criminal case.
However, a number of questions arise. Why is Liiev accused of embezzlement and misappropriation? For whose benefit? Especially since the contract was signed by the previous head of the Department. Why is he accused of obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine? Wouldn't it have been an obstruction not to transfer to the military the machine guns that were lying on the warehouses as "dead weight" while "Shaheds" were flying towards Ukraine, especially since the commission of military personnel had no complaints about the condition of the machine guns? These questions remain unanswered.
On January 14, Liiev was notified of the suspicion. On January 17, the court was supposed to determine the preventive measure. However, the court did not take place - Judge Elena Shevskaya postponed the hearing.
"In the morning, I packed my things and left for Poltava at 5:30.
At 10:00, the October District Court of Poltava scheduled a hearing on the prosecutor's petition for the imposition of a two-month detention measure on me. (...) The prosecutor did not show up for the hearing. The hearing was postponed due to the prosecutor's absence. It has been rescheduled for Monday at 13:15," Liiev explained on his Facebook page regarding the reasons for the postponement.
In the same message, Liiev rejected the accusations against him and noted that the preventive measure of detention is unsubstantiated, as he does not plan to hide or influence the investigation.
And here again arises the question - if the procedural leaders in the form of prosecutors petition for the harshest preventive measure and apparently justify this by claiming that the suspect may flee, then why did the prosecutor not appear in court?
We managed to contact Liiev's defender, Markiyan Bem, who confirmed that in the petition submitted by the prosecution, it was indicated that the suspect might engage in improper procedural behavior.
"We arrived in advance at the court session to find out that the prosecutor decided not to attend the hearing, requesting the court to postpone it because he had more important cases that were being heard that morning. Firstly, this is very strange behavior for a prosecutor who, contrary to what he wrote in the petition, does not consider it urgent nor takes seriously the risks that Oleksandr (Liiev - ed.) might engage in any improper procedural behavior. Secondly, this is a situation that I believe is in our favor, because even though the prosecutor did not show up, we fulfilled our duty, we