Unnecessary rifles at exorbitant prices, “refurbished” sniper cartridges and the seizure of $39 million – and all this about the Czech-Ukrainian “AKM Group-CZ”

In October last year, a journalist from the publication Censor.net listed in the article “Partners of state agents, swindlers and scammers without their own website - disrupting arms supplies to Ukraine” a number of foreign companies associated with outright inflating prices for weapons or disruptions in supplies to the Ukrainian army.

One of these, “AKM Group-CZ” (Czech Republic), recently found itself in an international scandal: as part of the investigation in the Czech Republic, $38.8 million was seized, which were transferred to the company from Ukraine. And recently, from my own sources, I received more disappointing news about this company.

Let's start with the issue of the effectiveness of our snipers.11/28/2022r. Contract No. 403/1/22/349 was concluded between the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the company “AKM Group-CZ” for the supply of 500 units. “CZ TSR” rifles in caliber .308 WIN (7.62x51mm) (with manual reloading, bolt action) with an effective fire range of 500-800 m. The purchase cost is 5 million euros, that is, 10,000 euros for 1 rifle. What immediately catches your eye is the “flat” price for a sniper rifle, something you rarely see in specifications. According to information from officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, these rifles were not in service in any country in the world and did not have a NATO Stock Number.

Moreover, no one coordinated the purchase of such products with real users. The main weapon of a sniper in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to regulatory documents, are rifles with manual reloading in caliber .338 LM (8.58x70mm), which allow effective fire at distances of up to 1500 meters, and up to 500 meters a sniper is not recommended to open fire at all due to high probability of being hit by enemy machine-gun fire.

Rifles in caliber .308 WIN (7.62x51mm) can be used exclusively in 2 cases: if the weapon is multi-caliber, that is, the same rifle can be, by easily changing the barrel, converted from caliber .308 WIN to caliber . 338 LM (for example, the Barret MRAD sniper rifle) or if the rifle is semi-automatic, such as the UAR-10, which is in service with the Ukrainian Armed Forces and has proven itself to be excellent. a semi-automatic rifle allows both targeted, high-precision shooting at distances of up to 800 meters, and, if necessary, intense fire at closer distances. That is, an infantry sniper does not need to have a machine gun and a sniper rifle with him - a semi-automatic allows you to combine this.

However, the “CZ TSR” rifles purchased from the “Czech” company “AKM Group-CZ” (“Czech”, since apart from the nominal director with Czech citizenship, all other employees and real beneficiaries are Ukrainians) are neither bicaliber nor semi-automatic, then they DO NOT MEET the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and DO NOT HAVE A TACTICAL NICHE. Special attention is paid to the fact that the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, instead of taking the side of the army and canceling the contract, supported the Czech supplier with all possible measures and persistently convinced them to accept these rifles. But when the persuasion did not work, they said that “there is nothing you can do, the money has been paid, use what you have.”

Now the worst fears have come true - these police/sporting/hunting rifles CZ TSR have begun to be issued to soldiers on the front line. What this led to is that a soldier with such a rifle is neither a full-fledged sniper (this rifle does not allow firing at 1500 meters) and cannot conduct intense fire like an infantryman. He needs to carry this rifle and a machine gun with him when conducting an intense battle - obviously, it’s impossible to carry 2 rifles, so it’s clear what he’ll get rid of first, and it’s definitely not a machine gun.

The potential argument of the Ministry of Defense for the purchase of these rifles - “there was nothing, we would like to buy at least something” does not work, since at that very moment the Ministry of Defense had offers of all the world-famous and Ukrainian rifles of different calibers.

Now let's talk about the real purchase price, the cost of the contract with the Moscow Region is 5 million Euros (10,000 Euros for 1 unit). The price that we were able to find in the public domain is 4,078 Euros including VAT for 1 unit. (since VAT is refunded when exporting from Europe, the real price is 3200 Euro per rifle)

This is confirmed by a letter from the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Education and Science to the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine dated 06/09/2023 that the National Center for Combating Organized Crime of the Police of the Czech Republic blocked 38,830,723.00 US dollars to the company “AKM Group-CZ” in connection with suspicious transactions and misuse of funds from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. And only 1,420,000.00 Euros were released, since the Ministry of Defense “ordered” 500 CZ TSR rifles. It is clear that exactly enough was unlocked to purchase from the manufacturer, and this, by mathematical operation, amounts to 2,840 Euros per rifle, which is a fairly normal European price for such a wholesale batch of rifles.

That is, in reality the rifles cost 2,840 Euros per unit, and even if you add transportation costs, you get about 7,000 Euros of overpayment on all contracts. Or, if it’s easier to perceive – 3,500,000 Euros of pure overpricing (70% of the cost for MOU). Let me remind you that about $37 million remained blocked, which were paid by Ukraine to this Czech company under some other contracts that, apparently, will not be fulfilled.

Despite these facts, AKM-group CZ actively continued to enter into contracts with the Ministry of Defense and state special importers throughout 2023. In June 2023, the state special importer under the control of the Main Intelligence Directorate “Spetstechnoexport” approached the Department of Military-Technical Policy, Development of Weapons and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine with a proposal to supply refurbished 8.6x70 mm caliber cartridges produced (restoration) by the company GetLoad.cz through the already known to us “AKM-GROUP CZ”.

The Ministry of Defense announced the rejection of the proposal with reference to the conclusion of the research institute and said that the specified cartridges cannot be used by the troops, since in addition to being civilian and non-armor-piercing, they are also restored (reload). But “Spetstechnoexport” wanted to sell the said cartridges so much that it reported that it had somehow already been able to supply these cartridges to the Ministry of Defense and argued the need for the purchase precisely on this basis - that the specified cartridges had ALREADY been supplied to the Ministry of Defense earlier and there were no comments upon acceptance.

There could not have been any comments upon acceptance, since the military accepts them in an extremely active mode, and only verifies quantities and markings and physically could not check their core (either it is combat tungsten, or civilian lead) and the quality of assembly. The real “acceptance” happens at the front when these NON-COMbat recycled rounds make it to the front lines. Of course, sniper fighters simply do not have the time and desire to write any letters of complaint and the like. Therefore, we hope that the snipers were able to find out that these were NOT COMBAT ammunition before they loaded their rifles with them and simply threw away this trash. Now let's move on to the main thing - who is behind AKM-group CZ? This business card caught my eye:

Anatoly Palaniychuk, a man with the same name and surname, headed the tax office in Chernivtsi for some time and was the head of the Judo Federation in the Chernivtsi region. And considering the significant amount Czech law enforcement officers seized from the accounts of this dubious company, I will continue the investigation...