“More and more interesting nuances are emerging in the case of the former chairman of the State Special Communications Service, Brigadier General Shchigol.”
Konstantin Korsun, a cybersecurity expert, writes about this. In 2000-2005, deputy head of the department for combating computer crime under the Counterintelligence Department of the SBU.; founder and first head of CERT-UA, former director and co-founder of a Ukrainian cyber company.
“It turns out that the project, the theft of money from which is being investigated by NABU, and the anti-corruption court has arrested the suspected officials, is called Action. Engine (read “action-engine”, if that’s the case).
And evil tongues say that it was paid for twice: the first time for donor funds, and the second time for budget funds. Or vice versa.
How true this is - let's figure it out together: in May 2022, the Estonian Academy of Electronic Regulation announced a tender for “Services for developing a platform for maintaining state electronic registers of Ukraine”, here is the link.
And a year later, on April 19, 2023, “The Government adopted a resolution on the use of the Platform for the rapid creation and management of state registers.”
That is, some kind of Register Platform was already ready and the Government allowed its use.
NABU investigated 3.14zding during the “development” of a system with a very similar purpose, but for BUDGET funds.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), I do not know the details of the NABU investigation, but it would be very interesting to know the following points:
- did this Estonian tender take place?
— if it happened, which company won?
– how much did the winner of the tender receive?
— has the winning company completed the work specified in the tender?
— if completed, did you transfer the finished product to the Ukrainian government?
— if transferred, to which institute?
— is the product transferred to the Ukrainian side identical in core functionality to the “Platform for the rapid creation and management of state registers” and the “Software platform for the creation and maintenance of state electronic registers operating on the basis of the National Center for Reserving State Information Resources (Register Platform)”? https://is.gd/Nm3P1Q
- aren't the above platforms other names for the same product known as “Action. Engine"?
- if the product transferred by the Estonian side needed a certain “adaptation” - is such work worth 285 million hryvnia (I highly doubt it - UK)?
Although, perhaps, these points have already been investigated and documented by NABU detectives.
If not, it’s all easy to check.
By the way, the Estonian tender was held within the framework of the EU4DigitalUA project, funded by the European Union, so there was no American money there 😉
Considering the love of Ukrainian IT officials to write off budget funds for the “development” of an already finished product, the likelihood of a similar scheme in this case is very far from zero.
We look forward to new information from NABU-SAP-VAX.
And by the way, the name of the cut item is Action. Engine - this has nothing to do with this “only one in the world” lonely Action of yours, right?
Meanwhile, this morning VACS took into custody V. Zhora, Deputy Chairman of the State Special Communications Service for Digital Transformations. His direct boss was “closed” on Thursday, November 23 (he had already been released on bail of 25 million UAH). D. Makovsky, whose NABU also conducted searches in connection with the same case in April 2023, was left to perform the duties of the Head of the State Special Communications Service. Excellent selection of personnel, Misha, bravo. It is clear that no one will change the “system”, they will simply appoint a new person.
And something tells me that the new appointments will be no less odious.”
