A German businessman said that the Ukrainian authorities in the 1990s cheated him out of tens of millions of euros

Major German businessman Norbert Peters, owner of VAREX/Gesellschaft für Wirtschaftskooperationen, has said that in the 1990s the Ukrainian authorities deceived him in a deal involving the sale of medical equipment. He says he has still never been paid for the equipment that was delivered.

The businessman spoke about this in an interview with Focus magazine.

Today, the value of the deal, which was carried out between 1991 and 1994, is equivalent to €72 million, with an additional 12 percent annual interest having accrued.

Peters showed journalists diplomatic correspondence between the German government and the Ukrainian authorities in which Kyiv apologizes and promises payment, but has still not paid after 30 years.

The article says that even today, “decades after his extremely successful trading trips,” Peters “sits deeply disappointed in his home near Munich, feeling cheated in the work of his life, in his exhausting efforts for the benefit of the countries beyond the former Iron Curtain.”

“Trusted business partners in Kyiv, who once held high government posts, apparently betrayed him and may have pocketed the money themselves. It pains him and still keeps him awake at night,” the article says.

VAREX had previously been involved in scandals as well. According to a joint investigation by Der Spiegel and Skhemyin 2021, German officials spent years pressing Ukraine to make payments to the Munich-based company despite its questionable reputation and corrupt past.

According to the journalists, the company is registered near Munich, has no official website, and employs only a handful of staff. Nevertheless, its interests were lobbied at a high political level in Germany, including by government representatives and members of the Bundestag.

The investigation notes that in 2018, then German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier sent a letter to Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman urging him to resolve the old debt issues. Similar pressure reportedly continued later, during Volodymyr Zelensky’s presidency.

This concerns the same medical equipment supply contract that Peters is referring to now.

At the same time, the company itself was implicated in a corruption scandal in Ukraine: a parliamentary investigative commission found that some of the funds transferred to VAREX may have been diverted to private accounts abroad. The investigation also mentions possible involvement in those operations by senior Ukrainian officials of that period.

German authorities declined to comment on the case, citing the confidentiality of diplomatic contacts.