Back in the fall of 2022, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and Lviv Arsenal signed a contract for the supply of 100,000 mortar rounds worth almost UAH 1.4 billion. The contractor for the supply of ammunition from the Elmech plant in Croatia was the Slovakian company SEVOTECH, represented by Oleksiy Khoroshayev.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have not yet received the ammunition under this contract. The Ministry of Defense has tried to recover the funds, but has not yet succeeded in doing so, as most of them - UAH 818 million - have been arrested in the accounts of Lviv Arsenal as part of criminal proceedings. The Ukrainian company transferred the rest of the funds abroad as an advance payment.
In January 2024, law enforcement officers conducted searches in the case of the Lviv Arsenal contract and announced five suspicions.
UNN has already investigated why the Ukrainian Armed Forces have not yet received ammunition and offered interviews to all those involved.
One of the defendants in the case, a representative of the SEVOTECH contractor, Oleksiy Khoroshayev, is now actively communicating with Western media. In particular, several of his interviews have recently been published, in which he actively criticizes the actions of the signatories to the contract between the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and Lviv Arsenal, Oleksandr Liev and Yuriy Zbitnev. At the same time, he claims that SEVOTECH has fulfilled all the agreements.
We also offered an interview to Oleksiy Khoroshayev and asked him about his vision of how the situation developed and what is happening now.
- Please tell us about the beginning of cooperation with Lviv Arsenal on the contract for the purchase of mortar rounds. Who came to whom and with what proposals?
- To begin with, in June-July 2022, there was a rush by the Ministry of Defense and Ukrspecexport to purchase ammunition for any type of weapon in Ukraine. As I used to work in a special structure, I still had connections and received calls 10-20 times a day asking me to inspect the goods. So, one day, someone called me, I don't remember exactly who it was, and told me that there was a company called Lviv Arsenal, which had just opened, had money and a contract with the Ministry of Defense. I was warned that the money would be paid when they had a license and an inspection.
Then we began to communicate closely with Vasyl Oleksandrovych Sakhnenko, the deputy director of Lviv Arsenal. Together, we made this contract for the supply of 100,000 mines. I went to Croatia to see my friend Zvonko Zubak, who has been in the arms market for 30 years and has very short leashes to those manufacturers who could help us in this matter, and asked him to draw up a contract between the Slovak company SEVOTECH and the Croatian plant Elmech.
We could have directly signed a contract between the Ministry of Defense and the Croatian plant, but the Croatian government does not issue an export license for an end-user certificate that says the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Therefore, we had to use SEVOTECH, a company with 30 years of experience in the arms market.
On August 14 (2022 - ed.), we signed a contract with Lviv Arsenal and on August 24, I personally inspected the plant (Elmech - ed.), sent Sakhnenko photos from the production and informed him that there are a certain number of 120-mm mines and a few 82-mm mines available, and there is a possibility of production. But a 50% advance payment was required for new production.
He (Sakhnenko - ed.) was satisfied with my inspection, but then he said that the Ministry of Defense had a condition that the inspection be conducted by the defense attaché in Croatia. Around September 10-12 (according to the documents, September 13 - ed.), the attaché came to the plant and submitted a report. I have a part of the report, which states that there is a certain amount of goods available and the plant can produce up to 18 thousand mines per month if there is payment. In a month or 5 weeks, the plant can already produce products.
- Please clarify when the commercial offer to Lviv Arsenal was made? Was it after the Ministry of Defense had conducted its inspection?
- No, that was before that. We set prices that were 20% lower than the entire market, for example, Romania and Bulgaria.
- How much was the actual commercial offer
- This is a commercial offer, it's just a paper, we agreed, we can't record every conversation we have with Vasyl Oleksandrovych and make a separate document for each conversation. I perceived them (Lviv Arsenal - ed.) as a serious structure, because he (Sakhnenko - ed.) told me that they had money and could pay. Of course, I grabbed the contract.
Note: Ed. At the same time, the contract between the Ministry of Defense and Lviv Arsenal has not yet been signed.
- Did you have a direct contract signed with the Elmech factory
- Yes. After the attaché sent the inspection report to his management, SEVOTECH signed a contract with the Elmech plant on September 15. Then they (Lviv Arsenal - ed.) informed me that they needed an export license. I told them that in order to get it, we needed an end-user certificate, so we had to submit the documents to the licensing committee.
As it turned out, as of September 15, when we had already signed a contract with the Elmech plant, there was no contract between Lviv Arsenal and the Ministry of Defense. I did not know this. Vasyl Oleksandrovych said that there was no contract. I suggested that we should just get it over with, waste time and forget it. However, he assured me that we would get the money. It was only on October 11, two months after we signed the contract with Lviv Arsenal, that the contract with the Ministry of Defense appeared. Around October 15, I received the end-user certificate. Sakhnenko said that there would be money, everything would be fine, let's get the license. At the same time, the plant is still standing, it has no obligations to us, it has a queue of customers.
On November 2, 2022, we received the license and gave it to Lviv Arsenal. Then I asked Sakhnenko to transfer the money, but a comedy began, saying that the money would be there today or tomorrow.
- Please clarify, did the factory want 50% advance payment
- Of course, it was in the contract.
- But the contract between SEVOTECH and Lviv Arsenal stated 35%
- No, we had a 100% prepayment. There was one stipulation that it could be 35%. It was Sakhnenko and I who were sitting around and joking that if we could pay the plant at least 42-45%, we would persuade them. That's where the amount came from. He (Sakhnenko - ed.) said they were afraid to pay. In general, 100% prepayment is made for such contracts.
- Why were they afraid and who? Lviv Arsenal?
- Lviv Arsenal is probably a further story.
- Everyone understands that the arms market is far from being a "Privoz", a "come and buy" kind of thing. You say that on September 15, SEVOTECH signed a contract with Elmech, and only in November did a contract with financial obligations appear between Lviv Arsenal and the Ministry of Defense, who were supposed to give the money. That is, SEVOTECH and Elmech signed a contract on September 15 without any financial obligations at all."
- The obligations were 50% prepayment and penalties.
- But this 50% was supposed to be paid in six months, right? There are deadlines, right?
- In Europe, the way they work is different, they don't have the concept that you sign a contract and then "play around." They immediately invoiced us and then started sending us letters two or three days later.
- So it turns out that SEVOTECH signed a contract with Elmech on the basis of the promise of Lviv Arsenal?
- Look, what is the arms market? People there have known each other for 10-20 years, and it's impossible to come in from the outside and buy something like that, no one will talk to you. So I knew who to go to and who to ask for help in this matter. There are friendly, commercial and partnership relations here - they need to be established over the years.
- Did you know Vasyl Sakhnenko or Lviv Arsenal director Yuriy Zbitnev well before that?
- No, I didn't know Sakhnenko well, I met him when we started the contract. I didn't know Zbitnev at all. Why should I? Why do I need Zbitnev if I have Vasyl Oleksandrovych? He knows everything. These are unnecessary things - getting to know each other, drinking tea. We simplified it all, saved time.
- How did you meet Sakhnenko?
- I honestly don't remember any intermediaries, hundreds of people communicate with each other, hundreds of people knew each other. Sakhnenko appeared, he called me.
- So you believed the honest word of Lviv Arsenal? Who did you know, who did you believe? If you didn't know Zbitnev, Sakhnenko?
- I would not have thought in my nightmare that the Ministry of Defense could refuse such a contract and fail such an ideal contract for Ukraine. It was never in my mind. It is illogical.
- But at that time there was no contract with the Defense Ministry. That is, at the time when the arrangements began, when Sakhnenko told you that there was money, money would be forthcoming, there was not even a contract with the Defense Ministry.
- I took him at his word, because I have obligations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but not to the Ministry of Defense. This is the principle: whatever my hand could do, I tried to do.
Let's separate them: there is the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. These are two different organizations. The Ministry of Defense is a service organization, these are service managers who are obliged to serve the Armed Forces. I did not communicate with the Defense Ministry at all, I communicated with representatives of the Armed Forces.
- Did you communicate with the then acting director of the Department of Military Technical Policy, Development of Arms and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defense Oleksandr Liev before signing the contract, during its validity or after its completion?
- I have never talked to him. I tried to contact him through my friends, to talk to him for at least 10-15 minutes and explain the whole situation. He was freezing. The friends I asked said he didn't want to talk to me.
- And when was it, at what stage?
- When we signed the contract (between SEVOTECH and Lviv Arsenal - ed.), the contract started to hang up in the fall. I tried, but it was useless.
- Who did you talk to from the Armed Forces or the MoD about the contract?
- I was talking to quite high ranking people from the Armed Forces. I asked if we needed (ammunition - ed.). They answered me that of course they needed it. These were my personal contacts, my friends, relatives, some at the front, some at zero. They are adults, status people, I won't name them, we have friendly relations.
- The investigation claims that all the suspects in the Lviv Arsenal contract case immediately understood that the contract would not be fulfilled. How can you comment on this and why, in your opinion, did you encounter problems with its fulfillment?
- I can't comment on that. Everything indicated that this contract would be fulfilled. How can it not be fulfilled? If everything is signed, the first license is issued.
- Why do you think Zbitnev did not immediately transfer the prepayment for the contract to you after receiving the funds from the MOD?
- Zbitnev should be the one asking these questions. Why didn't he transfer at least 45% or at least 40%?
- Did he explain it to you in any way?
- He didn't explain it. He is a writer, a person far removed from this business. If I were to be appointed director of an opera house, it would be like appointing Zbitnev director of SpetsExporter. It's the same thing. If a person does not understand, he is a random person. I tell him, tell him, and he looks at me and flies somewhere in the clouds. The person received 36 million (euros, about 1.4 billion hryvnias - ed.). How could he not fulfill this contract, even after he received it? He started making a comedy of it, paid 10%. Then this Sakhnenko came again with somebody else. We went to the plant again, showed everything. Then the money was transferred. This is money, the bank, financial monitoring - they sent this 10% somewhere in mid-November. And only on November 25 was it credited. We apologized so much to the plant, my friend Zvonka (Zubak - ed.) paid off some interest, some penalties to the plant director. Do you realize how much profit he lost? We are at war, but they are doing business. Why should it lose and stand idle for three months because of some incomprehensible games of the Ministry of Defense?
- How long did the plant wait for the money?
- Three months, until the end of November. Then they canceled the contract.
Note: Ed. It should be noted that the supplemental agreement on financial obligations between Lviv Arsenal and the Ministry of Defense was signed only on November 10, and 97% of the prepayment was transferred to the Ukrainian company's account on November 17.
The last time Vasyl Oleksandrovych came in late November, the plant director brought him back to the production site and then had to transfer 50% of the prepayment. Zbitnev transferred 10%. I then asked him where to put it. SEVOTECH did not have the funds to make an advance payment.
Note: Ed. However, by this time, the money from the Ministry of Defense was already on the account of Lviv Arsenal.
- So Zbitnev transferred 10% and then another 20%, right?
- Yes, he transferred 10%, then they made a comedy. Vasyl Oleksandrovych said that he and another man would go to Bosnia and that if there was ammunition in the warehouses, I should pay for it. I agreed.
- What about the contract with Elmech
- We already knew that it (the plant - ed.) would terminate the contract. You see, there is actually no 50%. I stalled and did not communicate with Elmech for several days or a week. Sakhnenko and his partner went to Bosnia, disgraced themselves there, and 10 days later came back and said: "Let's do something.
Note: Ed. At the same time, 97% of the funds from the Ministry of Defense were already on the account of Lviv Arsenal.
- How did they justify going to search for mines in Bosnia?
- These are incompetent people. I am not their nanny, I could not tell them that you are wasting money, time and effort, that there is nothing in Bosnia. Bosnia will not give anything to Ukraine, it will not even send it through Croatia.
- Okay, so where did the 30% down payment go
- Wait, we got 10% at first and didn't know what to do with it. Then Zbitnev transferred 20%. It was already somewhere in December.
- Has the contract with Elmech been terminated?
- If they had transferred 40%, then it would have been possible to save him somehow. But since he had only transferred 20%, I already realized that the contract was terminated. At that time, Zbitnev was arriving in Prague.
- Did you tell Zbitnev that the plant would terminate the contract?
- Of course I did, to which he said he would come to Prague and we would solve everything.
- There was a contract between the MOD and Lviv Arsenal, Lviv Arsenal had a contract with SEVOTECH, SEVOTECH had a contract with Elmech. Even if theoretically they could have found ammunition in Bosnia and bought something with the 10% they transferred, how would they have been brought to Ukraine if the contracts were signed with other companies?
- And you already had an export license, right
- I already had a license, of course.
- Let's go back to our 30% prepayment. What did they go for
- Sometime in the second half of December, I met Zbitnev. I told him: "Yuriy Ivanovich, it's better to give you the money, because we won't do anything with this 30%, the plant will terminate this contract. 30% is not enough." He began to tell me that he would pay another 20%, but that he needed some more licenses. A set of words.
Then I received a message from the plant about the termination of the contract. I informed Zbitnev that the contract was terminated and we were returning the money. He realized that he would not find these mines anywhere else and asked me to come up with something.
What can we come up with? Supply ammunition from another place. It was mid-December.
Note: However, according to the contract between the Ministry of Defense and Lviv Arsenal, the first part of the first batch of ammunition was to be delivered on December 20, 2022.
I'm going to see Zvonko Zubak again. I told him that this contract (with Elmech - ed.) was terminated and asked him to find ammunition in other countries. He said that 90 thousand mines could be supplied from Southeast Asia, and another 10 thousand from a European country. I explained the situation to Yuriy Ivanovych and said that it would take a long time because licenses would have to be obtained in three countries. I explained that it would be no earlier than May. He agreed, and only after the authorization did I transfer 10% to WDG. That's where WDG came from, it's Zvonko Zubak's company.
After that, Zvonko Zubak signed a contract, not for 100,000, but for 200,000 mines from Southeast Asia. He showed me all the documents, all the inspections. But our attaché cannot get to that country because these countries do not import anything to Ukraine at all. And there are a lot of Russian spies there.
- So it was WDG that did the inspection
- WDG conducted an inspection. It's the same thing, but it was a year (of production - ed.), everything was stored in a good place. Everything was fine there. Of course, I had no right to show this contract to Lviv Arsenal. We signed the contract and I told Zbitnev that we had to wait until May. We calculated the licenses and how to make them. It was logistics, ships, we had to negotiate with the ports. The cargo had to get through without being arrested, which is difficult.
Note: Ed. It should be noted that according to the contract between the Ministry of Defense and Lviv Arsenal, the last batch of ammunition was to be delivered to Ukraine on February 20, 2023.
- What did Zbitnev say to you?
- Zbitnev said everything was fine, let's do it.
- You didn't show him the contract, why
- I would have shown him. And back in December (2022 - ed.) I told Zbitnev that he had hit the jackpot, that he had received money (from the Ministry of Defense - ed.), even though no one does. I asked him to obey me, in a good way, and I would do everything. If he obeys me and doesn't interfere, then we will prove this contract.
- But according to the contract between the Defense Ministry and Lviv Arsenal, the first delivery of ammunition to Ukraine was supposed to take place on December 20.
- But how can it be if there is no money?
Note: Ed. At the same time, 97% of the prepayment was already on Lviv Arsenal's account for a month.
- And Zbitnev did not demand that you do it faster?
- How can he claim if he didn't pay the money on time?
- Okay, let's go back to the contract for mines that you signed with Zubak. The mines were supposed to come from Southeast Asia. But according to the contract between the Ministry of Defense and Lviv Arsenal, the mines were supposed to be Croatian, right?
- How would the MoD explain this
- I explained it in words, I warned him (Zbitnev - ed.) before paying WDG. I said they would come from there. These may be mines from 2017-2018. But it's the same thing.
- Did Zbitnev coordinate this with the Defense Ministry?
- I don't know. He had money. I don't know what he was doing there and with whom he was coordinating, how he got the money, it's not my business.
- Were there any mines from Southeast Asia made in 2017-2018
- Until 2020, until 15 years old, these are considered brand new, they were in good storage. I was not allowed to show these documents to anyone. But Zvonko showed them to me.
- The contract between the MoD and Lviv Arsenal stated that the mines should be of 2021-2022 production year. How did Lviv Arsenal want to bring in mines made in 2017-2018 if they could not be accepted because the year of manufacture was not appropriate?
- I'll tell you this - it's nothing. This is an additional agreement. We had a clause in the contract between SEVOTECH and Lviv Arsenal that if something happened to the plant, we would look for other ways of supply and agree on them. We had such a clause in the contract, and no one violated it.
- Let's go back to the contract with Zubak. You sign the contract, Zubak shows you that there are mines, and then what? Do you then transfer the money?
- Yes, by agreement. I told Zbitnev verbally that we had signed a contract with WDG, and WDG had signed a contract with the supplier directly. This is Southeast Asia, a state-owned company, like our Ukroboronprom. I have these contracts. And I will show them to investigators who have security clearance.
That's it, the contracts are signed, we have to wait. However, on January 5, Matthias Zubak called me and said that Lviv Arsenal had sent a letter to WDG, stating that they had paid SEVOTECH two advance payments and would like to see when the license would be ready, and he wanted to meet with everyone. Zubak asked me what it was and who I was dealing with. That's when I realized that I was dealing with a stranger.
Then he (Zbitnev - ed.) started writing messages to Zvonko Zubak, saying that he had another 20 million and offered to work directly. Then he started writing to my director drunk in the middle of the night. I then asked him (Zbitnev - ed.) what he wanted, but he didn't answer.
At the same time, former Ukroboronprom deputy director Maksym Glushchenko arrives in Prague and summons Matthias Zubak to a meeting. Glushchenko brought to the meeting the contract between SEVOTECH and Lviv Arsenal, extracts from the contract, and an import license. This is all forbidden, these are secret documents. He (Glushchenko - ed.) told Matthias Zubak that SEVOTECH should be cut out of the middlemen and a direct contract should be signed with Lviv Arsenal. Zubak left the meeting, called me and told me about the situation.
I called Glushchenko to ask what was going on. He apologized and said he didn't know that I was the one representing SEVOTECH. After that, I stopped giving out information to Zbitnev and only talked to Sakhnenko.
- Did Lviv Arsenal explain to you that the first batch was supposed to be delivered in December and the Defense Ministry is already charging them penalties?
- He told me about it, but I told him that it was his problem, because he knew what he was doing. I offered him to sue the Ministry of Defense, because they were the ones who did not pay the money for three months
Note: Ed. It is worth noting that the Ministry of Defense assumed financial obligations only on November 10, 2022, and 97% of the prepayment was transferred to Lviv Arsenal's account on November 17, 2022 and only after obtaining licenses.
- Why didn't the Ministry of Defense pay for three months? They signed a contract and one of the requirements to send money was an export license. They waited until they received the license, then signed an additional agreement and transferred 97% within a few days.
- On November 2, we received the license. I don't know when Lviv Arsenal received the money. If I were Liiev, if I were the head of the Department of Military-Technical Cooperation, if a contractor who signs a contract with a manufacturing plant wanted to talk to me, I would talk to him. I would not freeze up from him.
- If Lviv Arsenal came to you, would you not conduct additional checks and wait for a license? I think that you, as a person who knows exactly how the arms market works, would want to play it safe. The Ministry of Defense did allocate the money.
- This contract was disrupted by the MoD, represented by the Department. This contract had to be grabbed and signed quickly, immediately after the attaché's inspection.
Note: Ed. However, according to the contract between the MoD and Lviv Arsenal, the funds could be transferred only after an export license was received, not the attaché's report.
On September 15, we (Lviv Arsenal - ed.) agreed that we would work. They (Lviv Arsenal - ed.) promised that we would have money in September. I went to Croatia and signed the contract on September 15. They would have told me that I still needed a license, given me a contract (between the Ministry of Defense and Lviv Arsenal - ed.) on September 16, and on October 1, we would have received the license. We had an agreement with the Slovak licensing committee, and everyone was waiting. I talked to everyone - all the logistics, the end-user certificate, the license, the prepayment and then straight to the plant. But the Defense Ministry didn't do this, did it? Why didn't the Ministry sign the contract on September 15, and only signed it on November 11? What else could have been checked and double-checked?
- On October 11, the MoD signed a contract with Lviv Arsenal, which stated that they would have to sign an additional agreement after they received an export license.
- I haven't seen this contract.
- But Lviv Arsenal definitely saw it, because they signed it. This raises a lot of questions - you say that the MoD broke the contract, but on November 2, SEVOTECH received the license, handed it over to Zbitnev, who showed it to the MoD. After that, on November 10, Lviv Arsenal and the Defense Ministry signed an additional agreement allocating money, and on November 17, 97% was transferred.
- Look, we had a contract signed on September 15, and you say they signed an additional agreement on November 17, which is 53 days later, right? What should the plant do for 53 days, why should it wait?
- Did you know that at the time of signing the contract with Lviv Arsenal, they did not have a contract with the Ministry of Defense
- Of course I didn't know. Sakhnenko said that everything was signed, there was a contract with the Ministry of Defense.
- What does the breach of contract by the Defense Ministry have to do with it, if you were deceived by Lviv Arsenal when they said they had already signed a contract with the Defense Ministry?
- I will explain why. After the inspection, the attaché sent a report, which is automatically sent to Liev by the Ministry of Defense. I think Liev received the document and saw it on September 15. This was the basis for immediately signing the contract, immediately allocating funds and immediately paying the 50%.
Note: Ed. But, according to the contract between the MoD and Lviv Arsenal, the funds could be transferred only after an export license was received, not the attaché's report.
- What about the license that was obtained only on November 2?
- We should have signed the contract first, back in September, not on October 11. And there, as he (Liev - ed.) now says, he created some groups, drew algorithms for himself. This is his sabotage, that's all. This is my personal opinion.
- Did Sakhnenko tell you what the MoD requires of him?
- I don't know, I can't remember much of it anymore. I have the facts: On September 15, a contract was signed with the manufacturer, on September 12 (according to the documents, September 13 - ed.) there was an attaché report, which is the highest document confirming the availability of the goods for which money is paid.
- But shouldn't the Defense Ministry check the contractor and agent of Lviv Arsenal?
- Perhaps, but if Lviv Arsenal was issued an import license for the import of goods, it means that they have already checked it.
- Did Zbitnev explain why he did not transfer all the funds?
- He's making it up as he goes along. If I had paid 40% upfront, there would be no problems now. It feels like it was all done on purpose to prevent this contract from happening.
- From Lviv Arsenal. Now from the side of this company.
- How did Zbitnev justify keeping the money and not transferring it further?
- No, it was his problem. I didn't ask him anymore. I told him that we had signed a contract for 90,000 rounds of ammunition on the one hand and 10,000 on the other and asked if he was satisfied. He said it was fine, that 30% was enough for us. Zvonko gave all the advances, he made other schemes there, but I did not know about these schemes. So the goods are still there, they are assigned to us.
- So Zvonko Zubak doesn't have money in his account either, he transferred it to the plant?
- Of course, he counted more. There are 100 thousand rounds of ammunition there.
- After January 5, when Zbitnev sent a letter to WDG, I stopped communicating with him. Then in April (2023 - ed.), I got a call from someone who said that (MP Serhiy - ed.) Taruta was coming to Prague and wanted to talk to me and Matias Zubak (owner of the Croatian WDG Promet, son of Zvonko Zubak - ed. And Zbitnev was supposed to be there. We arrived at the meeting at the office on Wenceslas Square. Oleksiy Melnyk was also at the meeting, and he showed me the power of attorney that Lviv Arsenal had issued to him on April 7, 2023, and said that he was now in charge of everything in the company. I asked Zbitnev what was going on, to which he did not answer. Then Melnyk snapped and started yelling at Zubak. Matthias got up and left. Of course I stayed and he started yelling at me. Then I asked Taruta what kind of comedy this was, but he didn't answer either.
- There is still more information about Zubak. In an interview, he claimed that the money transferred to him by SEVOTECH was stolen from his account.
- No, it was not SEVOTECH's money that was stolen. There are no problems with SEVOTECH. The investigative authorities of the Czech Republic and Croatia are looking into the money.
- Then on May 25, we received a license for 10 thousand mines and on June 6, 2023, for 90 thousand mines. That means we can already organize deliveries from two places. From Asia and from SEVOTECH. I called Sakhnenko and told him that the licenses were ready, so let's meet with Zbitnev and decide what we are going to do next. In order to bring 90,000 mines from Southeast Asia, we need to pay for them. We have even agreed that we will pay all the money at the port when the goods are already there, and we have arranged for an attaché to come quietly to control everything. Sakhnenko told me that they had already opened a criminal case against Lviv Arsenal, blocked the account, and had no money.
- You only find out about it when it's already done
- Of course, I'll find out when everything is ready. It turns out that WDG should have charged us a huge penalty for breach of contract, but didn't.
- Why didn't you file a lawsuit against Lviv Arsenal?
- What's the point? We won't have any effect except on our nerves.
- Did Lviv Arsenal take legal action against you?
- No, but what was the violation on our part?
- We talked about how you received your first license for 10,000 mines on May 25 and 90,000 in June. You claim that you asked Sakhnenko to take the ammunition. But back in early March, the Ministry of Defense went to court because Lviv Arsenal was not delivering them ammunition. Back in March, in Lviv Arsenal's response to the MoD's claims, it was stated that it was SEVOTECH that was not fulfilling the contract and was not delivering ammunition only because of the Slovak company's problems. So Sakhnenko did not warn you about this?
- Every day Lviv Arsenal wrote 5-7 letters, which no one even read afterwards. I told Sakhnenko that as soon as we received the licenses, we could take the ammunition. All these letters and claims are garbage. If you have problems, then go to court, but he knew perfectly well that he would lose.
- Sakhnenko was Zbitnev's deputy and communicated with him on all issues. As it later became known, Zbitnev became a police agent in late April or May. Did Sakhnenko not suspect this or did he hide this information from you?
- Sakhnenko told me the following story: in January or February 2023, he had a difficult conversation with Zbitnev and was told that he had to pay these 800 million hryvnias (the balance of the funds transferred from the Ministry of Defense that remain on the accounts of the Lviv Arsenal - ed. A certain Sasha Kabanets (he told Zbitnev about this - ed.), who lives somewhere in Europe, who has a general in the SBU Counterintelligence Department. This is according to Sakhnenko.
According to Sakhnenko, the National Police opened the criminal proceedings because Liev violated a single point of the instruction he issued to himself in the Department, according to which contracts are signed.
Note: It should be noted that in fact, the criminal proceedings were opened not because of violations, but because of the failure to deliver 100,000 mines.
I told Zbitnev that he should sue the National Police or write a statement to the State Bureau of Investigation. But he got scared, and then I realized that he had put law enforcement equipment on himself and was recording everything at the meetings. He recorded all my conversations.
- What happened next, did you find out that Lviv Arsenal would not be able to pay the money, the funds were arrested?
- Then the most interesting part begins. I went to Zvonko Zubak again and explained that there would be no money under this contract. I was very apologetic and offered to put at least these 30% of the mines to keep a clear conscience. We agreed on the following: for this 30%, we would reapply for new licenses so that the goods would come from Europe.
- Have the old licenses expired?
- No, those licenses were for mines from Southeast Asia.
- And the other?
- The other one was valid, but for 10 thousand mines, and we need another 20 thousand. It took us a long time to get this new license.
In early October (2023 - ed.), some actions by Ukrainian journalists began. At first, I met with Inna Popovych from Hromadske, told them everything as it was, but they turned out to be some kind of distorted report. (Denis Sharapov, the former Deputy Minister of Defense who was responsible for the Defense Procurement Agency - ed. Then we started reading articles in the Western press that I, together with (Ukrainian businessman Vladislav - ed.) Klishchar, had stolen 37 million euros.
However, on November 7, 2023, we received a license to export the first batch of ammunition
Ed. note. However, by this time, criminal proceedings were already underway and the Ministry of Defense's money had already been arrested on the accounts of the Lviv Arsenal.
- From a factory in Europe?
- Yes. I called Zbitnev and asked him if he was okay with the logistics. He assured me that he had paid some Romanian company 100 thousand. I asked him to move the shipment quickly, before the new year.
- Where did this Romanian company bring the ammunition from and to?
- From a factory in Europe to Ukraine, via Bratislava. I think that in early or mid-December, the first batch should have already been in Ukraine, and then everything would have gone like clockwork.
- How many mines were there
- The first batch was 7,000, the next 3,000 and 18,000 mines. However, later it became known that Zbitnev had taken the money from the logistics company and did not even inform me, as the contractor. And in early December, around the 5th of December, he (Zbitnev - ed.) told me that he had no money. There was a specific sabotage on Zbitnev's part - why did he keep silent for a month, that there was no money for the transportation of mines.
- What happened after you found out that Zbitnev had no money?
- I told my director at SEVOTECH that we would pay our own money and transport the mines. However, on January 4 or 5, Zbitnev told me that his contract with the Ministry of Defense and import license expired on December 31 (2023 - ed.). That is, there is nowhere to transport the goods. I told Zbitnev to solve something, to extend the contract and license, to sign an additional agreement.
I don't know what he was doing there, but the director of SEVOTECH and I decided that we would pay for the trip to Bratislava and then figure something out. On January 27, my daughter called me and told me that our house was being searched.
- In Ukraine?
- Yes, in Ukraine. Cultural searches. Then these showdowns began, suspicions that we stole 1.5 billion hryvnias together with Liiev. Then the trials (to choose a preventive measure for the suspects - ed. I found the phone number of prosecutor Mykhailo Yurevych and called him with a proposal to talk. However, he refused to talk to me. I watched part of the trial. The prosecutor there said that SEVOTECH is a soda company and does not have any military licenses. And SEVOTECH is a company that has been on the arms market for 30 years.
- Let's go back to the ammunition, what happened to it after November 7?
- On January 30, I wrote an appeal to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Prosecutor General, the Verkhovna Rada, NABU, DBR, the Ministry of Defense - to all the authorities. On behalf of SEVOTECH, of course.
We received a response from the Office of the President of Ukraine, where we were informed that they had forwarded the appeal to the Office of the Prosecutor General. The PGO informed us that they had passed the appeal to be included in the criminal proceedings.
On February 19, the first three trucks with ammunition arrived in Bratislava. I informed the Ukrainian ambassador to Slovakia, Myroslav Kastran, about this. Then I called the attaché and asked to meet. The SEVOTECH director and I met with him, explained the whole situation, and he asked us to send the documents again. We sent them.
But no one would accept the goods, so we brought them to the customs warehouse, we had 48 hours, and then we reloaded them into other trucks. "At that time, Lviv Arsenal sent a letter saying that it was unilaterally terminating the contract.
- You said these mines are from a European country. Has anyone checked their quality besides Zubak? An attaché in a European country can check.
- In this country, he cannot. The attaché immediately wrote a letter to his superiors asking them to conduct an inspection. He is now waiting for an assignment from his superiors. As soon as he receives it, he will go to check.
- What will this check do?
- This inspection will confirm that there is a certain amount of ammunition and it is in Bratislava. We need an import license - there is nowhere to take this stuff.
- How can these munitions be brought to Ukraine if the contract between Lviv Arsenal and the Ministry of Defense has expired and Lviv Arsenal has terminated the contract with SEVOTECH?
- I personally see two options for resolving this issue. The signal I'm getting is that the Ministry of Defense is now thinking about how to do this. One of the options is to extend the contract between the Ministry of Defense and Lviv Arsenal, sign an additional agreement and submit documents to export control to extend the import license. The issue will be resolved and at least 30% of the mines will be delivered to Ukraine.
- You already knew that the contract between Lviv Arsenal and the Ministry of Defense was coming to an end. However, you still decided to look for ammunition in other countries. Why?"
- Zbitnev and I agreed that we would use the 30% of the money to buy ammunition. That was our verbal agreement, and we started to prepare the documents.
- But do verbal agreements on the arms market work?
- We have a valid contract. The fact that Lviv Arsenal terminated it does not mean that SEVOTECH terminated it. No one has canceled the obligations under the contract. If we did not need an import license, we would have brought them to Ukraine.
- Are you currently in contact with Zbitnev?
- He doesn't answer his phone, I tried to call him.
- Why didn't you tell us earlier in the interview that you had ammunition?
- I told them, but they didn't listen.
- Have you been served with a suspicion?
- I haven't seen her in the eye. I have no suspicions.
Note: At the same time, law enforcement officials claim that Khoroshayev was served with a notice of suspicion.
- Did the investigator interrogate you in this criminal proceeding?
- No, no one interrogated me. No one talked to me or my director.
- The investigation claims that it was you, together with Liiev, who organized the criminal group that is responsible for the failure to deliver ammunition. How would you comment on this?"
- I didn't organize anything with Lieiev and I've never seen him in person. I am ready for any polygraph. I told the whole truth, and if there are any requests for our company from the investigation, we will provide all the documents. We have passed all the checks - in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, namely financial monitoring, checks by the counterintelligence services of Slovakia and Croatia, the tax police, tax inspectorates - and everything is fine, no one has stolen anything.
- Do I understand correctly that, in your opinion, only a political decision is needed for Ukraine to receive ammunition now?
- Someone has to take responsibility. And not criminal responsibility, but simply to say let's extend the contract with Lviv Arsenal.
- What happens if no one takes on this responsibility? Trucks can't drive around Europe forever, can they?
- There will be a big scandal. We will bring trucks to the embassy, call the police, invite the press and unload the mines there.
The UNN editorial board requested interviews with other defendants in the criminal proceedings.