Ukrainian National Guard’s dubious fuel tank procurement scheme involves laundering millions

The Ukrainian National Guard Training Center in Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast, inked a deal worth 64.4 million UAH with LLC “TD ROBOTENKS” for the purchase of 72 “RGS-50” fuel tanks with each unit priced at 895.2 thousand UAH.

To justify the inflated costs, the Center’s leadership conducted an official market price check. According to sources, correspondence between the Center and “ROBOTENKS” revealed a commercial offer of 970.8 thousand UAH per fuel tank with altered technical specs, indicating the Center had initially considered “ROBOTENKS” as a potential supplier with modified product characteristics.

Despite prior agreements, the Training Center reached out formally to “45 Experimental Mechanical Plant” and LLC “Petrolain,” soliciting commercial offers for tanks with their original technical specifications. Speculation suggests this move aimed to secure higher pricing as agreed specifications with “TD ROBOTENKS” would reduce costs and speed up production.

Simultaneously, LLC “Petrolain” proposed a price of 547 thousand UAH per tank for a batch of 100 tanks over 8 months, considerably cheaper and more advantageous. Had the Center’s management opted for a contract with “Petrolain” based on their offer, the overall procurement cost could have totaled 39,384,000 UAH, highlighting an overpricing of 25,070,400 UAH.