Case involving substandard spare parts for Ukrainian armored vehicles sent to court

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko has announced that a case concerning the supply of defective components for armored vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been referred to court. The damage caused to the Ministry of Defense amounted to 126 million hryvnias.

This was reported by Censor.NET.

According to investigators, at the start of the full-scale invasion, a private enterprise received two state contracts to manufacture components for AFU armored vehicles worth more than 171 million hryvnias. Specifically, the contracts concerned engine cooling tubes for infantry fighting vehicles and other armored equipment — parts that are critical to their combat capability.

“In the course of fulfilling the contracts, it emerged that part of the delivered products were defective and did not meet technical specifications. Expert examinations confirmed that the spare parts could not be used as intended on armored vehicles. Moreover, they were sold to the defense ministry at significantly inflated prices.”

As the prosecutor’s office established, the scheme was organized by the director of the supplier enterprise, who exploited simplified procurement procedures under martial law. To secure the state contract, he manipulated data about the company’s production capacity and created the appearance of being a monopoly and unique manufacturer of defense products.

“He then laundered the embezzled millions through shell companies and individual entrepreneurs, converted them to cash, and spent the money on luxury real estate and premium vehicles. The total amount of transactions bearing signs of money laundering exceeds 73 million hryvnias. The theft of budget funds was also made possible by the dereliction of duty on the part of military officials responsible for logistics and material and technical support of the AFU. They failed to verify the quality of the goods, approved the inflated costs, and accepted the defective products,” Prosecutor General Kravchenko said.

The case was investigated in stages. Previously, indictments had already been sent to court against the businessman and the head of the armaments, military equipment, and property service of the special forces armaments and logistics unit of one of the AFU military units. This time, prosecutors referred to court materials concerning a third participant — the former head of the Central Directorate of the AFU Logistics Forces Command.

The businessman is charged with organizing the misappropriation and seizure of others’ property on an especially large scale, as well as laundering criminally obtained property. The officials have been charged with negligent performance of military duties resulting in grave consequences under martial law. Measures to recover the damages caused to the state are ongoing.