Defence Ministry comments on embezzlement during munitions procurement: funds will be recovered

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence is working to recover funds that were transferred to an ammunition manufacturer as a result of a corrupt scheme. Lawyers are examining how to terminate the contract.

Source: Interfax-Ukraine, citing Ilarion Pavliuk, head of the Defence Ministry's Press and Information Department, on the national joint 24/7 newscast

Quote from Pavliuk: "We will recover them [the funds – ed.]: we are already working on it. This was a contract under which payment was made, but no deliveries were carried out. Lawyers are studying these mechanisms, [working out] how to properly terminate the contract and recover the funds."

Details: Pavliuk also emphasised the "particular cynicism" of the deal. "These people were buying contracted ammunition during a war. They were trying to buy it with a 30% margin. And importantly, this could have impeded the contracted supplies that were in place, because they were offering the manufacturer a more expensive contract for the same ammunition with a different production rate, a lower one," he said.

According to Pavliuk, this is an extremely important case in which the anti-corruption mechanisms worked and those who did the deal very quickly found themselves in handcuffs.

Background: On 22 December, the head of one of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s main directorates was detained in Kyiv for embezzling UAH 1.5 billion (about US$40 million) while purchasing artillery shells for the Armed Forces.

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