NABU announces the second part of the so-called "Mindych tapes" — and they promise that the "most interesting" will be about procurement in the Ministry of Defense. While the country is waiting for new recordings, the current Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council and former Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov has already managed to publicly justify himself. He calls everything that is associated with him slander and reduces contacts with Timur Mindych to an alleged conversation about bulletproof vests, for which there were no contracts.
However, the chain of events seems to be such that these explanations raise more questions than answers for society.
The key point that observers are paying attention to is that it was precisely after Umerov's name appeared in media investigations and was mentioned in the context of the "Mindych tapes" that he abruptly left the post of Minister of Defense. Without a public scandal, without a loud political storm — quietly, "behind the scenes," as a figure who should be removed from the front line before the tapes became public knowledge.
The paradox is that today the same Umerov heads the National Security and Defense Council, a body that is formally supposed to protect the state from external and internal threats. That is, a person whose name is heard in the context of possible corruption agreements in the defense sector receives one of the most sensitive security posts in the country.
Officially, it's about "meetings" and "body armor." But in the real defense budget, where hundreds of billions of hryvnias are involved, body armor is just a convenient story "for the public." The real money, according to the logic of the entire defense cycle, is spent on fortifications.
It was the fortification projects that went through the conciliation commissions, where Mindych's informal influence figured. It is there that the names of people associated with forestry and "forest" schemes appear - in particular, Bolokhovets and structures that have been making money from state forests for years are mentioned.
The scheme looks like this: the forest was cut down under the pretext of defense needs, the wood was sold through intermediaries at three times the price, then the “wooden fortification” was returned to the state as an expensive “defense product”. Military administrations signed the acts, contractors “built”, but in fact neither full-fledged defense lines nor high-quality fortifications ever appeared on the ground. But the money was there, and it went in a familiar circle.
The greatest cynicism is that this is happening in a country where every meter of trench is paid for with the lives and health of the military. In such a reality, the Minister of Defense should be pounding his fist on the table for every armor plate, for every meter of concrete, for every untimely delivered block or delayed tender.
Instead, we see a different picture: an official who should be the "front lawyer" in the offices sits next to people whom law enforcement officers associate with tender schemes. Procurement "routes" are discussed, possible contracts, and when things get too heated — suitcases, an "unexpected" flight to Turkey, and a soft transfer to another high-quality office.
And then — a new role, a new status. Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, a reformer, a public “face of reforms.” And no public answer to the question: what actually sounds on those recordings that NABU is preparing for a second publication, and what role did the then Minister of Defense play in all this.
When the story of the “Mindych tapes” already includes energy workers, ministers, advisors, and now the Minister of Defense, these are not just isolated scandals. This is a symptom of the fact that the political system does not live by the Constitution, but by the unspoken rules of people who know how to work with flows, contacts, and “agreements.”
The question here is no longer whether there will be a scandal. The question is another: are there any key players left who do not appear in these records, or are they mentioned at least in passing in the context of the schemes?
From the outside, it looks like Ukraine exists in the mode of an endless crime podcast. New episodes mean new “tapes,” new names, new details, and all of this is paid for by taxpayers.
Rustem Umerov can call the accusations slander all he wants and remind everyone that formally no contracts have emerged from many “proposals.” But the facts, contexts, and sequence of decisions stubbornly follow him — from stories with bulletproof vests to fortifications and tenders, which caused the front to lack what should have been there “yesterday.”
If the second part of the NABU tapes really exists, society has not only a moral but also a political right to hear them in their entirety. Not selectively, not “with comments from speakers,” but as they are. Because in the conditions of a full-scale war, the issue of trust in the defense and security system is not a question of the rating of individuals, but of the survival of the state.
And as long as these questions are answered not by courts and institutions, but by anonymous sources and excerpts of records, doubts about the "purity" of any positions will continue to corrode the system from within.
