Case against former Lieu of Defense Ministry official on machine guns: weapons were accepted without any comments from military armorers

In the case of the allegedly defective machine guns, in which former Defense Ministry official Oleksandr Liev was recently notified of suspicion, 226 weapons were arrested, of which about 80 were found to be of poor quality. However, according to the terms of the economic contract under which the Ministry of Defense purchased them, the supplier is obliged to provide repair or replacement of faulty equipment, as is customary in such legal relations. UNN analyzed why the machine guns are not being repaired and sent to the front.

Liev claims that all the conditions for signing the machine guns' acceptance certificate were met. According to him, this act on the quality and quantity of the delivered weapons was signed by five military experts on weapons. 

In fact, this is confirmed in the relevant acceptance certificate, a copy of which is available to UNN: "During the inspection of the quality condition, it was found that the large-caliber machine guns KPVT 14.5 mm in the amount of 26 units were completed according to the product form; machine guns DShKM 12.7 mm in the amount of 200 units were completed according to the product form and their technical condition corresponds to category 1 without comments according to the quality certificate."

Details

Back in March 2022, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract for the supply of machine guns, signed by the then-Director of the Department of Military and Technical Policy. However, the delivery was delayed. In August, six months after the contract was paid for, Oleksandr Liev was appointed acting director of the department and began demanding that the supplier provide the necessary documents and weapons. Only in December, after all the necessary documents had been provided, did he sign the Act of Acceptance and Transfer of 226 machine guns under the state contract. Subsequently, the military began to receive complaints about some of the machine guns.

As lawyer Serhiy Laputko explained in a commentary to UNN, arms purchases by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine are essentially economic contracts, which means that the defense ministry is protected  by economic law in such cases. In case of supply of low-quality equipment, the following options for compensation are provided:

●        repair of the delivered equipment;

●        replacement of the product;

●        refund, including penalties for breach of contract.

The lawyer emphasizes that such situations are not uncommon, and commercial courts often rule in favor of the Ministry of Defense, forcing suppliers to fulfill their obligations.

"The Ministry of Defense is here as, so to speak, a service provider to the military. I would put it this way, because the military says we need it, the Ministry of Defense searches for it, transports it and brings it to the military unit, and says, for example, here is a 120 mine. The military looks at it, tests it, writes their complaints if they have any comments. If not, they accept them, if there are comments on the ammunition, they appeal to the Ministry of Defense to return or replace the weapons or ammunition," Laputko said.

The criminal proceedings regarding the supply of substandard machine guns have been under investigation since 2023, and 226 machine guns have been seized since then. The question arises as to why they are not being repaired or replaced under the terms of the contract? Why are they being kept seized?

The answer to this question may actually lie on the surface, because if the machine guns are repaired, replaced or refunded under the contract, there will be no criminal proceedings.

Due to the seizure of 226 machine guns, the process of solving the problem is being delayed. Instead of the machine guns performing their functions in the Armed Forces as soon as possible, they remain arrested, and during the war, every day of delay means losses at the front.

Is the seizure really justified if there are mechanisms for resolving such situations under commercial law? The answer to this question should be given not only by the investigation, but also by the public, which has the right to know why weapons remain unusable when they are needed most.