Preventive measure elected for Ukraine's Defence Ministry official suspected of embezzling US$39 million

The High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine (HACC) investigating judge Kateryna Sikora applied a preventive measure in the form of personal recognisance to Toomas Nakhkur, the suspended acting director of the Department of Military and Technical Policy, Development of Arms and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. Source: High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine on Facebook; Anti-Corruption Action Center on Telegram Quote from HACC: "On 2 February, the investigating judge of Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court partially granted the National Anti-Corruption Bureau detective's petition and requested a preventive measure in the form of personal recognisance for the acting director of one of Ukraine's Ministry of Defence departments, who has recently been removed from office."

Details: The court imposed several obligations on Nakhkur, including: not leaving Kyiv without the permission of the investigator, prosecutor, or court; refraining from communicating with individuals named in the court order; depositing his international travel passport(s) with the relevant state authorities; and wearing an electronic tag.

The imposed measures last two months. The full text of the decision will be released on 7 February. At the same time, the judge refused to order the suspect be detained with a bail alternative of over UAH 268 million (about US£7.1 million), as requested by the prosecutor.

Nakhkur is one of five suspects in the alleged theft of nearly UAH 1.5 billion (roughly US£39 million) intended for the purchase of 100,000 mortar rounds for Ukraine's Armed Forces. According to investigators, Ministry of Defence officials were aware in advance that mortar ammunition would not be delivered, and no one in the Ministry of Defence checked how it would be delivered from Croatia to Ukraine. Nakhkur, as head of the corresponding department of the Ministry of Defense, was in charge of ensuring the contract's terms were valid.

According to the prosecutor, despite numerous violations of the law and contract, the official registered the agreement and prepayment decision for UAH 1.34 billion without properly checking all of the documents, not tracking the order of delivery of mines, and not properly checking the supplier. The prepayment totaled 97% of the contract amount. The defence maintains that Nakhkur was only the head of one of the Ministry's departments and only managed certain aspects that were within his area of responsibility.

In addition to him, over 10 others gave their approval. According to the defence, this was an ordinary business transaction, and placing only Nakhkur under suspicion is unfounded. Details: The Ministry of Defense clarified that Nakhkur was suspended due to the announcement of suspicion in criminal proceedings.

He received a notice of suspicion on 27 January. Background:

On 27 January, Toomas Nakhkur, along with Oleksandr Liiev, the former head of the department, managers of the Lviv Arsenal company and a representative of a foreign firm were served with notices of suspicion in the case of embezzlement of almost UAH 1.5 billion for the purchase of ammunition.

Previously:

Earlier, Ukrainska Pravda reported that Lviv Arsenal received US£36.8 million from the Ukrainian MoD for the supply of a large batch of 120-mm and 82-mm mortar rounds, but the company is long overdue on the contract and had not handed over a single ammunition round to the Armed Forces.
Yurii Zbitniev is the founder of Lviv Arsenal; he became one of the youngest members of the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament] of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1990. He also took part in creating the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (United), but later left it.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence reportedly signed a contract with a little-known company called Lviv Arsenal on 11 November 2022.

A few days later, the then defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov authorised an advance payment under the contract - almost 100% of the contract amount.
Deliveries were supposed to begin in December 2022 and be fully completed by the end of February 2023.

However, as Ukrainska Pravda reported, as of the end of July, the Defence Ministry had not received a single ammunition round under the prepaid contract.
On 26 January, the Pivnichnyi (Northern) Commercial Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the first instance court to recover UAH 1.5 billion from Yurii Zbitniev's Lviv Arsenal company, which failed to comply with the contract to supply ammunition to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

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