At the beginning of the summer of 2024, a scandal erupted in Ukraine due to embezzlement in the army related to the purchase of flasks for the Armed Forces at inflated prices. According to the mass media, the well-known anti-corruption publication "Law and Business" published a material in which an official of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Hlib Kanevskyi, acting head of the Department of Procurement Policy, is accused.
As the journalists found out , the state agency "State rear operator" paid UAH 54 million for 153,000 army flasks. That is, a one-liter plastic flask cost 355 hryvnias. Although the same flasks of the American model are freely sold for 120 hryvnias, and analogues can be found for 72 hryvnias.
It was established that the "State Rear Operator" announced the purchase of plastic flasks for the Armed Forces 4 times. The first two auctions under the simplified procedure were cancelled. Although three participants applied for them, and they were ready to sell 100,000 bottles for less than UAH 20 million. But their proposals were rejected due to the lack of acts of compliance with the technical specifications of the Ministry of Defense.
As a result, agreements for the supply of flasks were concluded without holding tenders with dubious firms that had not previously engaged in such supplies. And the specifications and requirements for the flasks were actually developed for specific participants.
"Kanevsky, in his own words, knew about the problems with the documentation, the solution of which would allow saving significant funds for the state, but he hid them and, contrary to his official duties, did not take measures to solve them and improve the efficiency of defense procurement," the article says .
We will remind that Kanevskyi is known for evading the draft from the army, and after being served with a summons, he got a job at the Ministry of Defense, where he is currently responsible for procurement.
Before that, he headed the StateWatch anti-corruption center for a long time and worked closely with anti-corruption activists Vitaly Shabunin and Yuri Nikolov, who, according to the media, are also evading the army. As for Shabunin, the SBI is investigating two criminal cases - for evasion of mobilization and forgery of NAKC documents.
