On May 10, 2024, the occupiers re-invaded the Kharkov region, from which they were expelled in 2022. Despite the heroic dedication of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in less than a week of the new offensive of the Russian Federation, about a dozen Ukrainian border settlements fell under occupation: Strecheya, Krasnoe, Pylnaya, Borisovka, Pletenevka, Ogirtsevo, Morokhovets, Oleynikovo, Zelenoe, Glubokoe, Lukyanovka.
Now the enemy has set his sights on the city of Volchansk, where up to 20 thousand people lived before the great war. The evacuation of civilians continues, and fighting takes place on the streets of the city.
At the end of August 2022, seven districts of the Kharkov region were under Russian occupation (Bogodukhovsky, Izyumsky, Krasnogradsky, Kupyansky, Lozovsky and Kharkovsky). From the beginning of September 2022, the Defense Forces began to liberate the occupied territories in the Kharkov region: September 8 - Balakleya, September 10 - Kupyansk, September 10 - Izyum. Until November 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces expelled the Russian army from 568 settlements in the Kharkov region.
The head of the Volchansk city military administration, Tamaz Gambarashvili, assured that fortifications around the city have been erected, “but perhaps not so tightly.” Because the Russians constantly fired mortars and artillery.
So what actually happened to the fortifications in the Kharkov region? As journalists from the publication Glavkom found out, detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau have been working for more than a year, and employees of the Bureau of Economic Security have been actively unraveling corruption in the construction of fortifications in the Kharkov region for the last few months. The abuses, according to investigators, amount to tens of millions of hryvnias.
Deposit on wires and concrete products
Immediately after the liberation of the Kharkiv region in 2022, the Presidential Office announced that the region would strengthen its defense capabilities. For this purpose, the Cabinet of Ministers allocated UAH 300 million in the fall of 2022 for the construction of additional fortifications.
At the end of December 2022, the Department of Housing, Communal Services and Fuel and Energy Complex of the Kharkov Regional Military Administration signed a contract with Slobozhanskaya Construction Company 1 LLC for UAH 82.38 million, providing for the supply of wire products. The procurement took place without the use of any tenders or competitive procedures. In February 2023, the customer gave the mentioned company another 19 million UAH for a defense order. And again, without a transparent selection of the winner and any details regarding the purchase itself.
As soon as the Housing and Communal Services Department in good faith transferred UAH 82 million to Slobozhanskaya Construction Company 1 LLC for the wire, NABU detectives became interested in this wiring. As part of the criminal proceedings regarding possible abuses on the part of officials of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, law enforcement officers recorded an impressive “food chain”: the contracting company deposited UAH 77.3 million into the account of the intermediary Inter-Kanat LLC as payment for construction materials. Next, Inter-Rope LLC scattered UAH 48.9 million to a barbed wire manufacturer and three rope suppliers. Another 1.4 million UAH was written off for the transportation of ordered products.
The investigation calculated: the difference between the funds received by Inter-Kanat LLC from Slobozhanskaya Construction Company 1 LLC and transferred to suppliers of barbed wire and ropes, taking into account transportation costs, amounted to UAH 27 million. Inter-Kanat LLC transferred part of them (and this is 15.9 million UAH) in the form of payment for construction materials to the accounts of six counterparties with signs of fictitiousness.
NABU also believes that in the UAH 27 million gain there is a significant increase in the price of the product that was bought by officials of the Kharkov Regional State Administration. According to the prosecution, as of December 2022, the market price of a ton of Egoza barbed wire ranged from 130 thousand UAH to 205 thousand UAH including VAT, excluding transportation. The price of a ton of Egoza barbed wire for the construction of fortifications in the Kharkov region, purchased under an agreement with Slobozhanskaya Construction Company 1 LLC, amounted to... 420 thousand UAH including VAT. In total, the contractor had to supply 294 tons of wire.
Now for the devil, which is in the details. According to the Youcontrol analytical system, Kharkov-based Slobozhanskaya Construction Company 1 LLC was created... November 14, 2022 (a month before the contract for UAH 82 million!). The original founders of the company were four Kharkov residents Andrey Kolos, Victor Limarenko, Nikita Rozhkov, Andrey Strohiy and a resident of the Poltava region Alexander Sorochinsky.
The first to leave the company in April 2023 was Rozhkov, until recently a deputy of the Kharkov district council from OPZZH. Strogy came out after him, then Sorochinsky. The last person to leave Slobozhanskaya Construction Company 1 LLC at the end of August 2023 was Andrey Kolos, a member of the executive committee of the Kharkov City Council. The sole founder and owner is Viktor Limarenko.
As researched by the Kharkov Anti-Corruption Center, in 2018 Mr. Limarenko was among the founders of the Promdesign company from the Russian Belgorod. In the Russian registry, the telephone number 7(472)-220-03-33 is associated with this company, which is also used by Belgorod Promtransproekt. The director of the company is Alexander Vyacheslavovich Rozhkov. A person with the same name and Russian citizenship was among the founders of Dune LLC, the owner of which is the above-mentioned Nikita Rozhkov, and the director is Viktor Limarenko.
The annual earnings of the “baby” company also attract attention. In 2023, net income from sales of products (goods, works, services) of Slobozhanskaya Construction Company 1 LLC amounted to UAH 199 million, in 2022 - UAH 71.4 million (remember, the company was founded in November 2022).
In general, the purchase of wire products from the Kharkov Regional State Administration seems to have been “broken.” “Glavkom” analyzed several April contracts and noticed an interesting feature: the winners were all individual entrepreneurs with registration in Zaporozhye.
However, something else is surprising. The authorities of the Kharkiv region buy wire products from entrepreneurs Maxim Kudri (5.39 million UAH), Pavel Kondratenko (5.39 million UAH) and Evgeniy Kalinovich (4.99 million UAH), who specialize in... retail clothing in specialized stores.
The authorities of the Kharkov region buy wire products from entrepreneurs who specialize in the retail trade of clothing in specialized stores,
data from Youcontrol
“Glavkom” tried to talk in more detail with these successful entrepreneurs. Pavel Kondratenko refused to comment on anything, saying that he was uncomfortable because he was driving. Maxim Kudrya also picked up the phone, but after the first questions on the merits of the matter, he hung up. And he no longer responded to calls. Evgeniy Kalinovich’s phone did not answer at all.
In addition, the pre-trial investigation into the inflated cost of the BP-0.5-17x23 postern block is ongoing. This is the main building material (in the form of a modular protective structure made from concrete) necessary for the construction of fortifications, including in the Kharkov region.
According to the investigation, in 2023, when purchasing 542 units, suppliers “inflated” the price by UAH 12.4 million. This fact falls under the qualifications of Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code (“Misappropriation of budget funds on an especially large scale”), law enforcement officers noted in the case materials.
New company – old “sins”
To build fortifications in the Kharkov region, employees of the department of housing and communal services and the fuel and energy complex involved the little-known Alliance-Transbudservice Construction Company LLC from Cherkassy. This company is also new - it appeared in April 2023, and already in February 2024 it managed to obtain “fortification” contracts worth UAH 150 million.
According to the Youcontrol analytical system, the founder and owner of Alliance-Transbudservice Construction Company LLC is Vitaly Okhota, a Cherkassy resident. The company's contact phone number leads to another Okhota company, very similar in name - Alliance-Transbudservice LLC.
She does not have as attractive a background as her newly created namesake, who got her hands on the construction of fortifications. In particular, Alliance-Transbudservice LLC is a defendant in criminal proceedings for the misappropriation of budgetary millions during the construction of outpatient clinics for general practice of family medicine in the Cherkasy region.
Another criminal proceeding from 2017 is also preserved in the court registry. In it, the police suspected Alliance-Transbudservice LLC and officials of the Belozersky village council of the Cherkasy region of abuses in small purchases. According to investigators, the company that won the tender for the overhaul of part of the premises for the administrative services center (ASC) subcontracted its owner, individual entrepreneur Vitaly Okhota. He, according to law enforcement officers, brought office furniture of dubious origin into the premises of the Central Administrative Office.
In addition, individual entrepreneur Vitaly Okhota distinguished himself in the renovation of the administrative building of the Belozersk village council, where he was attracted by his native Alliance-Transbudservice LLC. The investigation found that the entrepreneur transferred money to another businesswoman who did not have employees with the appropriate qualifications, as well as special equipment and equipment for construction work. What was the outcome of the mentioned turbulent stories, in which the owner of the Cherkassy company, which is now building fortifications in the Kharkov region, is mentioned, the court register, unfortunately, is silent.
Failures on other fronts
But Kharkov region is not the only one. There are significant complaints about the construction of defensive fortifications in other regions. A few examples. The Main Investigation Department of the Security Service suspects officials of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration and officials of the UkrSiverBud and Stroyindustry companies of obstructing the legitimate activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Article 114-1 of the Criminal Code).
In simple words: by the end of 2023, the mentioned contractors had to build engineering and fortification structures in the Chernihiv region worth UAH 343.7 million. However, they did not meet the deadline. At the same time, according to SBU investigators, the volume of work was artificially inflated, and the quality of the fortifications did not meet the technical conditions. All this did not ensure the speedy protection of the border from a possible offensive by the Russians, the case materials say.
Similar problems exist in the border Sumy region. The police are investigating a criminal conspiracy between officials of the Sumy Regional State Administration and representatives of contractor companies in the construction of platoon strongholds. The scheme for appropriating budget funds is primitive: uncertified concrete bunkers of own production are installed using stolen and unaccounted for sand from quarries located in the Sumy region (the villages of Tokari and Verkhnee Peschanoye).
At least two criminal cases have been opened in the Donetsk region regarding the misappropriation of budget funds during the construction of fortifications. Among the defendants are military personnel who allegedly messed with unprocessed wood that was supposed to be sent to fortifications.
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After breaking through the border in the Kharkov region, the head of the regional military administration, Oleg Sinegubov, announced a “debriefing”: all participants in the construction of fortifications in the region will report on the work completed. In general, this may look like an attempt to shield subordinate officials (it was they who looked for participants without transparent competitions and signed million-dollar contracts with them) and to make only contractors the extreme ones. But, as you know, in such cases two people “waltz”: the customer and the performer.
