The SAPO stated that Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense embezzled hundreds of millions of hryvnias on egg and other food procurements

In 2022–2023, employees of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense stole hundreds of millions of hryvnias (tens of millions of euros) during purchases of eggs and other food products for the army. At that time, the ministry was headed by Oleksii Reznikov, although he is not among the suspects.

This was reported by the press service of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

“It was established that during 2022–2023, the Ministry of Defense supplied food to the military by contracting companies to provide catering services. The essence of the service involved purchasing a full food package based on a catalog containing 409 items. That is, the Ministry did not buy selected individual items from the catalog but all 409, with the total price forming the cost of the package. This allowed wrongdoers to embezzle budget funds by inflating prices for high-demand items and underpricing less popular ones—while making the overall package price appear market-appropriate. For example, 50% of the total contract value—around 1.2 billion UAH (≈ €26.9 million)—was for just 40 out of the 409 items, and the prices for those were inflated. Meanwhile, 27 items with underpriced values were supplied to the Armed Forces for only 3.6 million UAH (≈ €80,700), making up just 0.14% of the actual value of such goods,” SAPO stated.

The ministry also manipulated the catalog with regard to seasonal pricing. For example, suppliers listed abnormally low prices for seasonal items: cherries at 8 UAH (≈ €0.18) per kilogram, strawberries at 10 UAH (≈ €0.22), blackcurrants at 10 UAH (≈ €0.22), and so on. On the surface, these appeared to be cost-effective purchases by the Ministry. However, according to approved regulations, military units were not allowed to order these seasonal products during the validity of the contracts—because the agreements were signed after the season had ended. At the same time, officials at the Ministry “overlooked” these price manipulations when signing the supply contracts.

As a result, this scheme led to two supplier companies illegally receiving over 733 million UAH (≈ €16.4 million) from the state budget between August and December 2022.

In the case of eggs alone, the plan was to embezzle 788 million UAH (≈ €17.7 million), but media outcry disrupted the procurement. These funds could have been used later to purchase hotels in Croatia and other real estate abroad.

Suspicions in the case have been issued to the former head of the Ministry’s department, Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, the owner of the supplier companies, Tatyana Hlyniana, and an individual.