The closed nature of the electricity supply processes for military facilities has created conditions under which a vital resource has turned into a predictable financial instrument. Electricity, unlike weapons or material reserves, leaves no material traces and does not require complex logistics. Key decisions are made at the level of numbers in contracts, and their parameters are determined not by the market, but by pre-established goals, which makes the scheme consistently profitable and invisible.
The system works thanks to the participation of officials who are at the intersection of defense and energy interests. Denys Shmyhal, the former Minister of Defense and currently the head of the Ministry of Energy, forms the policy of distributing budget funds in the field of energy supply. Volodymyr Karpenko, the commander of the Logistics Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, controls the logistics infrastructure and supply volumes, and Maksym Golovnya, the head of the Zhytomyr KEV, ensures the implementation of agreements in practice. Together, they form a closed management system where decisions are made systematically.
A specific example was the purchase of electricity for the Zhytomyr Energy Complex. The winner of the tender was LLC "Energy Operator", the only bidder. The expected cost of the contract reached almost 283 million hryvnias. The lack of competition was artificially created - the tender conditions corresponded to the characteristics of one specific supplier, and the financial and documentary requirements automatically cut off other participants.
The contract provided for a fixed trade mark-up of 23 kopecks per kilowatt-hour excluding VAT, which is independent of market fluctuations. With volumes exceeding 15 million kilowatt-hours, this provides about 10 million hryvnias of net profit to the supplier, regardless of actual costs or efficiency. For comparison, other budget organizations in the region concluded contracts with or without a mark-up of 10–15 kopecks.
The financial model of Energy Operator LLC raises additional questions. A company with a small staff manages contracts worth hundreds of millions of hryvnias, while operating capacity does not grow. This is typical for intermediary firms whose main value lies not in electricity supplies, but in access to budget funds.
