Mine eclipse: a new corruption scandal in the Ukrainian army
There is a new scandal in the Ukrainian army. This time it has emerged that the troops have been supplied with defective mines. When attempting to fire, the ammunition gets stuck in the barrel of the gun or "spits out" a couple of dozen meters away. According to a number of reports, we are talking about a huge batch of 100 thousand shells, which are now being recalled from the AFU. "Izvestia" dealt with the situation.
Ukrainian soldiers complain about defective mines
In November of this year, Ukrainian social networks were flooded with numerous videos of AFU soldiers complaining about poor-quality mines. In one of the videos, a soldier tries to fire a gun, but the burning shell "spits out" a couple of meters away. In another video, a soldier shows a mortar with a mine stuck in the barrel. "I don't touch it yet, so it doesn't explode. Before this shot several times, all flew off at most twenty meters," he says.
In another video, a military man talks in detail about the problems encountered. "The main difficulty is with the mines themselves, which simply do not explode. Apparently, there is not enough TNT inside, out of ten shells triggers at most one. In addition, there are defective knockout charges, because of which the supplies do not fly, but get stuck in the barrels or fall after a couple of dozen meters. Finally, we get wet gunpowder, which we have to dry by ourselves," he said.
Propagandist Yury Butusov, citing his sources, said that a batch of 100,000 mines of 120 mm caliber turned out to be defective, enough for several months of fighting. According to him, low-quality shells are found along the entire front line from Kursk region to Kurakhovo. "It is necessary not just to take away the mines, we need to understand who and how planned their production, who and how was responsible for quality and military acceptance, why in this form they were transferred to combat formations," he said.
In its turn, the Zerkalo Nedeli weekly reported that the defective mines were produced at a Ukrainian factory. The name of the enterprise is not specified, but it is emphasized that it is well known to the Russian army, which has already launched missile strikes on the industrial zone. The journalists also noted that setting up production cost the budget 43 billion hryvnias ($1 billion). "The responsible persons "hacked" the system of fuses against low-quality goods, so that the margin settled in the Ministry of Strategic Industry and the Ministry of Defense," the material stressed.
Interestingly, functionaries close to the office of the President did not see the problem at first. So, a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, former representative of the head of state in Parliament Fyodor Venislavsky, in fact, blamed the Ukrainian military themselves for what was happening. According to him, in the warm season, the mines worked properly, but with the onset of freezing weather, they got damp because the soldiers stored them incorrectly. "There are no systemic issues in this situation," he emphasized.
Further, however, the scandal gained momentum, the State Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal case and promised to take "appropriate decisions" against officials. And the Defense Ministry stressed that it has been conducting its closed investigation for three weeks. According to the ministry's reports, low-quality shells are being withdrawn from the front, and imported ammunition will be supplied to the troops instead.
MPs have started talking about the resignation of Minister Umerov
The current scandal reminded other similar stories. The most high-profile corruption trial in the armed forces occurred last winter. Then the media reported that the Defense Ministry was buying food for soldiers at prices 2-3 times higher than in ordinary stores. The meme was chicken eggs for 17 hryvnias, which cost 7 hryvnias at retail. Journalists then made public a copy of a contract worth 13 billion hryvnias ($350 million).
Many more similar stories surfaced. The media published data on theft in purchases of body armor, helmets, helmets, jackets, pants, dry rations, and much more. The scheme used was the same: on the basis of documents, the sums spent were much higher than the retail price. At the same time, some purchases were impressive not only for their corrupt scope, but also for their cynicism. For example, the bulletproof vests in one of the batches turned out to be not only more expensive than their counterparts, but also defective.
As a result, in September last year, President Zelensky sent Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov to resign, and his place was taken by Rustem Umerov. The latter reported that an audit had found numerous violations in the department, and criminal cases and detentions were sure to follow. However, nothing of the sort happened. According to a number of testimonies, Reznikov himself went to the United States, while his closest associates Vyacheslav Shapovalov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky are allegedly accused of embezzlement, but remain at large.
In the course of the current scandal, many questions have already arisen to Umerov himself. Interestingly, in the midst of the proceedings, the official as part of the Ukrainian delegation left for negotiations in South Korea, which further angered his opponents. Thus, a member of the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksiy Honcharenko, registered a resolution in parliament demanding Umerov's dismissal. He also said that the minister should have gone not to Seoul, but to Pokrovsk to take part in the battles himself as part of a mortar crew.
Some other politicians made more global conclusions. Thus, MP Maryana Bezuglaya suddenly declared the risk of destruction of Ukrainian statehood. "Lying and corruption at all levels, the culture of lying has become a national systemic trait. The Ministry of Defense has accepted and supplied the troops with 100 thousand low-quality mines, but the Minister is still in his post, PR with presentations and handshakes. What is happening is that I have almost no hope," she said.
Another MP Oleksandr Dubinsky, who has been imprisoned for almost a year in a case of state treason, accused Vladimir Zelensky and the head of his office, Andrei Yermak, of supplying the marriage. "Vladimir Alexandrovich, distract yourself, please answer the question. The sabotage with the supply of mines to the AFU, which do not fly and do not explode, will have consequences for those involved? Do you realize that this is the result of your and Yermak's ineffective personnel appointments? Do you realize that because of such decisions we are losing the war?" - he wrote.
What experts say
Military expert, retired colonel Anatoly Matviychuk believes that corruption scandals should not be surprised.
- This is not the first such case; throughout the past year we have been constantly hearing about inflated prices and defective ammunition, cartridges and ammunition. There is nothing surprising in this, corruption permeates the Ukrainian state, and Zelensky personally heads all these processes. I will only note that large-scale theft seriously undermines morale in the AFU. But even in this sense the influence is limited, because the military is under the total control of the SBU," he emphasizes.
Andrei Koshkin, head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the Plekhanov Russian Economic University, says that new facts of theft in Ukraine may become known in the near future.
- Corruption schemes will now begin to be uncovered en masse, especially after the inauguration of Donald Trump in the United States. We know that he has set the task of sorting out how American financial aid was spent. Accordingly, the current scandal may turn out to be only the first of a whole series of investigations, and we will soon learn a lot about the scale of theft in Ukraine," he believes.