The National Anti-Corruption Bureau conducted a series of searches of former top officials of the General Staff, as well as in the Office for the Development of Automation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The case concerns the development of the Dzvin-AS troop control system and the possible theft of budget funds.
The nuance is that in January 2022, “Dzvin” was adopted by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and former Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov called it a kind of gift for Armed Forces Day. Journalists figured out how the system, the development of which is the subject of a criminal case, could be officially legitimized and how this does not prevent it from working together with its main competitor.
In December 2016, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract for the development of an automated system for the Operational Control Center “Dzvin-AS”. This system is, in fact, software in which the exchange of information between various units should occur online, which should significantly speed up the rapid response to threats and, accordingly, coordination between troops.
The contract was signed with Everest Limited LLC. According to him, the system was to be developed before 2020 and become unified for operational management. The development budget was about 600 million hryvnia. But in the year the project was commissioned, something did not go according to plan and the Security Service of Ukraine ordered an audit of the project, which revealed numerous shortcomings.
The audit report stated that Dzvin allegedly does not interact with NATO systems, that the project itself was reworked 12 times and because of this its budget was constantly growing. Auditors even said that the system was morally outdated, because it was supposedly based on document flow, and not data transfer in the “cloud”.
In 2021, the investigative journalism project “Bihus.info” published a large investigation into how the aforementioned 600 million hryvnia were allegedly “squandered” during the development of Dzvin. The basis for the plot was the audit report ordered by the SBU.
The nuance is that the only expert consultant in the journalists’ investigation was the developer of another automated command and control system, Delta, created back in 2016. By coincidence, representatives of the military unit, which includes the commentator of the story, were part of the team of auditors who checked Dzvin. The Association of Arms and Military Equipment Manufacturers of Ukraine suspected a conflict of interest and a desire to eliminate a competitor in this way in order to discredit the orders of the Ministry of Defense and its leadership.
It was possible to find out from the court registry that in June 2021, the Shevchenko court of Kyiv issued permission to search the location of Everest Limited LLC in order to find and seize software and operational documentation of the automated troop control system "Dzvin AS", documents on its creation and documents on the selection of subcontractors, in particular, Everest Limited LLC, Aikuzhn IT LLC, Interest Base LLC, Avtoprom Scientific Research Institute LLC and ZhKI-Consulting LLC, concluding agreements with them and their implementation, including transfer funds." The permit was issued for a period of one month and allowed only a one-time search.
It is not known for certain whether searches authorized by the court took place in 2021, but then the case actually stopped moving and it was not possible to find any other solutions to it.
Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the criminal case regarding Dzvin has not been mentioned, although, according to NABU, it was opened back in November 2020. And then the Minister of Defense Alexei Reznikov, in his report for 2022, announced “the completion of the cycle of state tests of the automated strategic level control system “DKR “Dzvin”” and the preparation of the system for delivery.”
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, a people's deputy from the Golos party, who is close to the anti-corruption authorities, asked NABU what was going on with the thefts. And he was told that the criminal case was still ongoing and, moreover, it was combined with the materials of the pre-trial investigation in another criminal proceeding.
However, on December 6, 2022, Alexey Reznikov signed an order to adopt the automated Dzvin-AS R&D system. “We received a unique gift for the Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. After all, our military is very interested in strategic-level automated control systems and have been waiting for its full deployment for a long time,” Reznikov wrote on his Facebook page.
Here he stated that “the Dzvin system successfully passed departmental tests in the spring of 2022, and subsequently - state tests.” And this despite the fact that, according to NABU, the criminal case on the development of the system at that time should have been in the active phase and searches should have taken place at the production facilities of the developer Everest Limited LLC.
However, Reznikov did not limit himself to “Ringing.” At the same time, in December 2022, he stated that “the Ministry of Defense received a positive expert opinion on the Special Software Complex “Integration Platform “Delta””. This is the same “Delta”, the developers of which actively talked about the fact that “Dzvin” was supposedly outdated and that the companies participating in the project, together with officials from the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense, could profit well from it.
“Delta” was adopted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces already in February 2023, that is, just three months after “Dzvon”. In a separate decision, the Government allowed it to be placed in a cloud outside of Ukraine, which should protect the system from enemy missile and cyber attacks.
So, it would seem that if the competitive systems “Dzvin” and “Delta” are both adopted by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, then the conflict should be settled. After all, let us recall that it was the representatives of Delta who were among those who wrote a negative audit report on the new development.
But in May 2024, NABU carried out a number of investigative actions. In particular, according to journalist Oleg Novikov, a search was carried out at the former head of the communications troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - ex-chief of the Main Communications Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Vladimir Rapko. They also searched: the former head of the Department for the Development of Automation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Viktor Artikhovich, the former head of military representation No. 2461 of the Ministry of Defense, Viktor Byvalkevich, the former head of the department for organizing the use of automated systems of the Directorate for the Development of Automation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Dedovets. Investigative actions were carried out in the premises of the Automation Development Directorate.
Subsequently, it became known that NABU detectives also conducted a search of the former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Rodion Timoshenko and ex-director of Everest Limited LLC Yuriy Pastukhov.
It should be mentioned here that permission to search at Everest Limited LLC was issued by the court back in 2021 and was valid for only a month. There is no information about new permits in the court register.
It is very significant that during the latest investigative actions, detectives allegedly found correspondence from the defendants regarding the development of the Dzvin system and even some remote chats in instant messengers. This looks quite strange, because, firstly, all the people mentioned no longer occupy the positions they held during the development of Dzvin, and secondly, it is simply difficult to imagine that someone will save some deleted chats in four years. from the beginning of criminal proceedings and a year and a half after the system was adopted by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The most interesting story concerns the developer of the Dzvin automated command and control system, Everest Limited LLC. Yuriy Pastukhov, who was recently searched by NABU, has not been the ultimate beneficiary of the company since November 2023.
Now the owner of the company is a citizen of Uzbekistan, Shokhrubek Karimov. On November 7, 2023, Everest Limited LLC changed its name to Komtorgprom LLC and moved to Zaporozhye. The main activity remains the wholesale trade of computers, peripheral equipment and software, but in the absence of financial statements it can be concluded that the company is not active.
In recent years, the Ministry of Defense has repeatedly found itself in scandals. Let’s remember, for example, eggs for 17 hryvnia, the order of which was approved by the same Reznikov who put “Dzvin” into service with the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Obviously, he could not have been unaware of the criminal case of theft that is being conducted in connection with the development of the system. Then the topic with the Grinkevichs came up, followed by several other smaller cases
As for Dzvin, it is unclear what the consequences will be if the investigation proves that 600 million of budget funds were stolen during its development. It is unlikely that anyone will remove the system of automated command and control of troops for the armament of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. That is, the military will continue to use what the funds were stolen from. And if the system continues to work, then the development company may well say: since everything works, there are no complaints. Moreover, the persons suspected of the schemes have not been in the management of this company for a long time, and the company itself has changed its name and registration.
