After the completion of the investigation, the law enforcement officers sent an indictment to the court in the case of damages of 1.7 billion hryvnias, which were caused to the state in the first days of the war. Ex-heads of the Ministry of Defense and "entrepreneurs" face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty.
The State Bureau of Investigation and the Prosecutor General's Office have charged former high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defense with causing significant losses to the state. Among the articles under which they are accused are obstruction of the legal activities of the Armed Forces and the embezzlement of property in particularly large amounts due to the abuse of official position. Also, they are accused of committing these actions under martial law. They face up to 15 years in prison.
Three ex-officials will appear before the court: former Deputy Minister of Defense Vyacheslav Shapovalov, former acting head of the Department of State Procurement and Supply of Material Resources Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, and former acting head of the Central Department of Quality Control of the Ministry of Defense Oleksandr Fidina All of them worked at the Ministry of Defense during the leadership of Oleksiy Reznikov, who was dismissed from the post of the head of the defense department last September. The law enforcement officers have no complaints against him, and now he works in the private sector. Recently, he became the director of security and defense programs of the public organization "Ukrainian Institute of the Future", which belongs to the owner of the medical service DOC.UA, Ihor Lisk.
Vyacheslav Shapovalov held the post of Deputy Minister of Defense from 2021 to 2023. In January 2023, he submitted an application for dismissal, claiming that this would make it impossible to threaten the stable supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine through a campaign of accusations. At the same time, the Ministry of Defense, acting on behalf of Oleksiy Reznikov, expressed sincere gratitude to Shapovalov for his teamwork and effective work. At that time, the Ministry of Defense emphasized the presence of a quarter of a million body armor and more than 150,000 helmets, as well as hundreds of thousands of sets of winter and summer uniforms in the reserves of the Armed Forces.
However, law enforcement did not share a positive assessment of these achievements. Already in February 2023, Shapovalov was arrested with the possibility of posting bail in the amount of 400 million hryvnias. It was proven to him that he promoted the conclusion of contracts for the supply of products for the military at inflated prices, as well as the purchase of low-quality body armor, helmets, clothing and other equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine for a total amount of more than 1 billion hryvnias. All these contracts were concluded with full advance payment. According to the State Bureau of Investigation, Shapovalov not only knew about the supply of low-quality products, but also pressured his subordinates to accept these goods at military warehouses and organize repeated laboratory tests that did not pass the initial tests.
Shapoval's subordinates, in particular Bohdan Khmelnytskyi and Fidyna, took part in this case. The latter, according to "Telegraf", approved the specifications of the Ministry of Defense regarding procurement items, which were developed by another person involved in the criminal proceedings - the former head of the logistics development department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Gennadiy Vdovichenko.
The most insolent episode in this investigation was the contracts with the Ukrainian company Thanos Technologies. No one had heard of her before the start of a large-scale investigation. The National Police began investigating the activities of this intermediary two years ago and opened criminal proceedings in February 2022. This company concluded a contract with the Ministry of Defense for the supply of ballistic helmets for the amount of 84 million hryvnias, and within two weeks - 6 more contracts for the supply of ballistic vests, helmets, military camouflage uniforms and MRE dry rations for a total amount of 1.642 billion hryvnias. The company "Tanos Technologies", which belonged to entrepreneurs from Dnipro Herman Nazarenko and Yevhen Reutov, was not active at that time. However, this did not prevent the Ministry of Defense from making a full advance payment for these contracts from March 2 to 18 to the company's accounts at the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Office of the Savings Bank, after which the funds were immediately transferred abroad and to several FOPs.
