More than a year ago, Yuri Zbitnev’s company Lviv Arsenal received a contract for 1.4 billion, but never delivered weapons. Ukrainian journalists have been writing about this case for six months now, but there is no communication from law enforcement on this story. From a request from the Public Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Defense, it is known that the case of the corresponding non-delivery is being investigated by the National Police.
At the same time, on January 24, a Hromadske story was published, where one of the persons involved in the deal directly says that the then head of the GVTP Liev offered him to significantly increase the price of ammunition. And the price was really too high. On new details of the Lviv Arsenal deal
Six months ago, asking about this contract, the author heard: “It seems that this was a special operation by Moscow so that we would not receive these mines.” Then the author was skeptical about the phrase. Like, this is how you attribute your promiscuity in suppliers. But the further we go, the more arguments this theory has.
Significantly inflated prices and 4 million euros into the unknown
As you know, on October 10, 2022, Lviv Arsenal entered into a contract with the Ministry of Defense, according to which it was supposed to supply mortar rounds of 120 mm and 82 mm caliber.
The company received an advance payment of 97% under the obligation to deliver the weapons to Ukraine in two months. The funds were paid, they were sent through several companies - first through the Slovak company Sevotech, then the Croatian WDG Promet, but the weapons were never delivered.
In March 2023, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine filed a claim with the economic court for the return of the recovery from Lviv Arsenal in favor of UAH 1,340,465,698 in advance payment, as well as UAH 90,683,623.06 in penalties and UAH 96,734,638 fine for violation of deadlines delivery of goods.
On September 26, 2023, the Economic Court granted the claim.
However, the company filed an appeal to the Northern Economic Court of Appeal. And just on January 24, the Ministry won the appeal.
The history of non-delivery of weapons by Lviv Arsenal looks from all sides like a planned scam. Censor.NET has described it more than once.
Firstly, the ministry was not given a license from the manufacturer - Croatia. But only the transit country, that is, Slovakia.
Secondly, the ministry agreed to buy the 82 caliber at a price that was significantly higher than the prices of that time. This shot was contracted for 10,200 UAH.
For comparison: in June 2022, Ukrainian Armored Vehicles supplied this caliber for 3,700 UAH, and in August, Ukrspetsexport for 6,100 UAH. The price of Lviv Arsenal is not only higher than previous prices, but also 2,100 UAH more expensive than prices for similar products offered by the Progress company in December. Even in 2023, with the constant increase in the price of ammunition, the 82nd mortar round did not cost as in the scandalous agreement.
Thirdly. If we take the difference with the price of Progress and multiply it by the amount of ammunition under the contract, we get 126 million margin.
If we compare the price of a 120 mm mortar round with the price from Ukrspetsexport as of August 2022, then it was 17.3 thousand hryvnia per unit, while Arsenal’s was 19.2 thousand hryvnia.
And now one of the intermediaries in the deal, a representative of the supervisory board of Sevotech, Alexander Khoroshaev, in a conversation with Hromadske, states that representatives of the Ministry of Defense wanted to receive kickbacks from the contract with Lviv Arsenal.
“They call me from Arsenal: Liev wants mines not for 240 euros, but for 330, and those mines that cost 510 also cost 630. I explain to him: I won’t pay these kickbacks, it’s impossible. There is a European Commission in Brussels for all Ukrainian money that comes here. For every 20 thousand euros they will charge you. I say: I can only give 5-7%,” Khoroshaev told the journalist.
Former head of DVTP, who signed a contract with Lviv Arsenal, Alexander
Liev denies any contact with Khoroshaev.
“I don’t know this person. I had never heard his last name (before journalists investigated). I didn’t have any oral negotiations with Arsenal, there was only correspondence,” Liev said to Censor.NET.
“The price in their offer did not change and was (if I remember correctly) 485 euros for a 120-mm mine + 3% agent income of Lviv Arsenal, that is, almost 19 thousand UAH. And for an 82 mm mine (if I remember correctly) it was almost 10 thousand UAH, which at that time was 260 euros with delivery and agency 3%. These are the prices that were included in the government contract. At that time, these were absolutely reasonable prices,” he added.
“So, the information you are asking for comment is false. In addition, I remind you that it was I who included strict penalties in the contract for breach of contract and delay, and it was I who in the end imposed fines on Lviv Arsenal along with an appeal to law enforcement agencies.
And it was I who initiated the arrest of funds in their account after the delivery deadline was missed,” Liev noted. However, it seems that both Khoroshaev and Liev want to appear better than they are.
Hromadske journalists have receipts that show that Lviv Arsenal paid the first intermediary, the Sevotech company, more than 12 million euros, but then only 8 million went to the Croatian WDG Promet.
That is, 4 million euros most likely ended up somewhere in the hands of unknown companies. And those that reached the Croatian company were never spent on ammunition.
Then there were the tears of “WDG Promet” that they were robbed by their own bank operator Kamil Babukh. In return, he accused WDG Promet of buying the plant with Ukrainian money.
In the latest investigation by Hromadske, Babuch directly states that there was no money in the WDG Promet accounts until money transferred from the Ministry of Defense entered there. He claims that the owners of the company, the Zubakov family, have been looking for an opportunity to buy the Vitesit gunpowder plant in Bosnia since 2021.
Suspicious? Yes.
These are not all suspicious episodes.
Caliphs for an hour. A very strange supervisory board of Sevotech
In a previous article, Censor.NET already wrote that almost simultaneously with the conclusion of the contract, a certain Vladislav Klischar joined the supervisory board of Sevotech.
This is a person who is part of the circle of Andrei Gmyrin, the fiscal officer of the Yanukovych era, who in 2021 was a member of the Office of President Zelensky.
Gmyrin is a defendant in the NABU case regarding the theft of public funds from the Odessa Port Authority and the United Mining and Chemical Company. It also includes Klischar’s companies - EPI Group sro and Belanto, to which the OGKhK sold ilmenite at a cheap price, which then went to Russia or occupied Crimea at market prices.
However, Gmyrin managed to flee abroad before suspicions were announced, and they were not raised against Klischar.
In a comment to Hromadske, the businessman assured that he had never had anything to do with the money of the Ministry of Defense.
However, his entry into Sevotech and exit very strangely coincide with the signing of a contract with Lviv Arsenal and the beginning of his massive media coverage in 2023.
Klischar has been living in the Czech Republic for a long time. He has several companies there, each of which is more interesting than the previous one. Among them is a certain LEO INTERNATIONAL GRUPP, where the partners are Belanto lawyer Alexander Bezzubets and Alexander Belyaev.
Yes, this is the same Alexander Belyaev, who is the brother-in-law of the former head of the SBU Ivan Bakanov and the former business partner of Vladimir Zelensky himself. More than an interesting and odious character.
Another company is ILS INVESTMENT GROUP sro. Klischar’s partners there are Belyaev and Alexander Melnichuk.
Klischar says he had nothing to do with arms supplies to Ukraine. It's true. Nobody supplied weapons. Just like instead of 17 thousand body armor and helmets, Sevotech supplied only 2.5 thousand. The contract was signed in April 2022, and delivery was supposed to take place in July 2022. But 14.5 thousand body armor and helmets were never delivered. Sevotech shifted all the blame onto its supplier MTC Slovakia.
Therefore, it seems worth taking a closer look at Sevotech and who is part of this company.
“Our company Sevotech spol. sro has been operating in the European and global arms market for the past 27 years. During this time, we have implemented a number of successful projects and arms contracts in many parts of the world. We value our reputation and the reputation of our European partners,” the head of the company, Jan Godermarsky, said in a statement after the release of the first article about this scam by Roman Romanyuk in UP.
Okay, let's see who is on the company's supervisory board. They now include Ladislav Godermarsky, Zuzana Maytanova, Magdalena Dobyasova and former Deputy General Director of Progress Alexander Khoroshaev, who in 2022 went on a business trip from a Ukrainian enterprise and remained abroad.
However, on this list there is an even larger group of people who, for some reason, joined the company’s supervisory board for a year or even for several months. Thus, the already mentioned Klischar joined the Sevotech supervisory board for just a year.
Similarly, the members of the supervisory board were: Martin Garing (from 04/11/2022 to 12/08/2022), Jan Kucera (from 04/11/2022 to 12/08/2022) and Katarina Garing (from 04/11/2022 to 12/08/2022).
Probably, the fact that the three indicated persons were on the supervisory board for the same amount of time should be surprising.
But there are other strange and even scandalous things.
In the same composition, Martin Garing, Katharina Garing and Jan Kucera are listed in another enterprise. This time in the Czech Republic. We are talking about a certain “Nadační fond EDRCh”.
The company was established on March 28, 2022 as a charitable organization.
In fact, it is a continuation of another project of Ekaterina Garing - European Defense Readiness Chamber, zs On its website, the company proclaims its goal to promote Ukraine in NATO and the EU.
Female leadership with a Moscow accent
Among the tasks of EDRCh, the following is declared: “Ensuring independent supplies of military equipment for Ukraine. “Build a network of reliable and transparent companies in NATO countries that will reliably fulfill their obligations to Ukrainian partners in the field of military supplies and thus ensure the stability of military supplies both for Ukraine’s own needs and for fulfilling the obligations of Ukrainian companies to partners in third markets.”
Yes, you are right. This is written on the website of the company, whose representative was on the supervisory board of Sevotech, which did not supply Ukraine with 14.5 thousand helmets and body armor. And also 100 thousand min. Indeed, “a network of reliable and transparent companies in NATO countries.”
Martin Garing and Jan Kucera are quite difficult to identify further. But what was found about Catherine Garing is already enough for a scandal.
This is a rare case when the heroine of the article has active social networks. And all because, in fact, the main business of this Garing is not the supply of weapons. And lectures on women's leadership.
Therefore, almost the entire Haring page is stories of her students who became successful. Or speaking at relevant events. She was even included in the list of 150 successful women of the Czech Forbes. And she took 65th place there. With a company that did... exhibitions.
If you open the register of the first Haring company, you can find out that its business partner is a Russian.
And on December 22, 2022, Haring, whose website declares independent and proper arms supplies to Ukraine, took part in an online meeting of the Global Association of Women Entrepreneurs FCEM (Femmes Chefs d'Entreprises Mondiales) in Moscow.
As stated in the message of the Women's Union of Russia, Ekaterina Garing acted as the organizer and moderator of the meeting as vice-president of the Association.
A similar meeting was held on December 21, 2023.
In addition to Garing, Galina Roketskaya, advisor to the Chairman of the Women’s Union of Russia, took part in both meetings. And here it’s not only important that this “Union” constantly supports Putin. That he organizes business courses for displaced people from Donbass, which was destroyed as a result of Russian aggression.
The figure of Roketskaya itself is also very colorful. Not only because the housekeeper stole 13 million rubles from her. She is the wife of the ex-governor of the Tyumen region Leonid Roketsky. Her granddaughter works in the administration of President Putin. Roketskaya has very wide connections - from political to criminal.
And it is with this person that Garing collaborates and has some common values, who was on the supervisory board of the Sevotech company, which did not supply 100 thousand mines to Ukraine. But another company declares “reliable arms supplies” for Ukraine.
This is not an isolated case. Garnig has been to Russia more than once; she has a photo from the same “Women’s Union of Russia” dated February 16, 2022. After all, Haring even studied in Moscow.
The icing on the cake - after previous investigations about Klischar’s team, the author received a photo of the business card of the mysterious Alexander Melnichuk. As it turns out, he is also part of the Garing EDRCh company. The one who is an “independent supplier” of weapons to Ukraine.
