Law enforcement officers are investigating the possible involvement of former Defense Minister Fedorov’s adviser in the procurement of drones at inflated prices

The investigation is examining the involvement of former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov’s adviser, Giorgi Tskhakaya, in concluding contracts and inflating drone prices, media expert Oleh Cheslavsky writes, reports UNN. 

The media called former Defense Minister Fedorov’s adviser, Giorgi Tskhakaya, “Fedorov’s eyes in the war.” Today, as Oleh Cheslavsky writes, Tskhakaya’s name appears in materials concerning Gurzuf Defense LLC, the manufacturer of Heavy Shot heavy unmanned aerial vehicles. 

“According to the available data, the investigation is examining the involvement of former Defense Minister Fedorov’s adviser and Ministry of Defense officials in concluding agreements under which the company received contracts worth more than UAH 4.5 billion during 2023–2025. Let us immediately note: this is the investigation’s version; no one has been publicly notified of suspicion, and all those involved have the right to provide their own explanations,” the media expert reported. 

Cheslavsky described the path Gurzuf Defense took from a startup to a recipient of billion-hryvnia state contracts. 

“The company for which a charitable foundation raised money through crowdfunding in 2022, because its capacity allowed it to produce ten units a month, turned into a recipient of billion-hryvnia contracts within two years. At the same time, only UAH 84 million has been documented in open procurement records, with the first public contract dated October 2024. The fiftyfold difference traveled through channels that are not visible in the public sphere. According to the available data, the investigation calculated overpricing of more than UAH 900 million, contracts with individual entrepreneurs worth UAH 133 million, some of whose owners are students and pensioners, and transactions with companies showing signs of being fictitious worth another UAH 780 million,” Cheslavsky explained.

The media expert, citing military personnel, claims that Heavy Shot drones  are afraid of rain, take a long time to charge, and require a larger crew—that is, extra people under fire. 

“The company itself, incidentally, claims exactly the opposite on its website: according to the manufacturer, Heavy Shot drones withstand ‘enemy fire, difficult weather conditions, and intensive loads.’ Somewhere along the way between the website and the frontline, these characteristics are lost, and it is now up to investigators to find out exactly where,” the expert writes. 

Power Without a Signature: Who Is Giorgi Tskhakaya

Cheslavsky points out that Tskhakaya worked as an adviser in Ukraine under various institutions, including state bodies, for 10 years “and during that time managed to be an expert on taxes, customs, privatization, subsoil use, urban planning, digital transformation, and, finally, defense procurement.” 

“No one person can understand all of this simultaneously,” Cheslavsky believes. 

Before moving to Ukraine, Tskhakaya worked in Georgia. There, he held various positions—he was deputy minister of economic development, headed the Revenue Service, and was deputy minister of finance, and later deputy mayor of Tbilisi. After the end of Saakashvili’s presidency, Tskhakaya, along with other members of the former Georgian leader’s team, ended up in Ukraine.

In July 2015, Tskhakaya became a freelance adviser to State Fiscal Service Chairman Roman Nasirov. Tskhakaya was appointed with the stated purpose of providing consulting services “to form an objective public opinion about the activities of the State Fiscal Service.” An adviser for forming public opinion. Cheslavsky points out that the adviser did not have Ukrainian citizenship at the time.

According to Cheslavsky, that same year Tskhakaya introduced the newly appointed head of the Odesa Customs Service, Yuliia Marushevska, to its personnel. What followed was aptly called by the Odesa publication Thesis “the unofficial management of the customs service.” The adviser, who held neither an official position nor citizenship, was given his own office in the building on Haidara Street, which employees dubbed “reception room number two,” next to Marushevska’s “reception room number one.” Everyone who wanted to resolve an issue with customs knew exactly which door to knock on.

"And now about the effectiveness for which it was all undertaken. By an order of the Odesa Regional State Administration in November 2015, a working group was established that was supposed to submit proposals for amendments to the Customs Code to the governor by March 15, 2016. The deadline passed, and no proposals were made public. Instead, as journalists documented, the advisers actively interfered in the customs service’s day-to-day official matters, which the order did not provide for at all," Chieslavsky claims. 

The media also contain recollections from the then head of the Odesa regional police, Kostiantyn Shpylovyi, who stated that Tskhakaia was the initiator of the dismantling (without following the proper procedures) of a sign near the Odesa port on Khadzhibei/Bypass Road, which allegedly directed trucks to the port only through the territory of the private company "Euroterminal." Journalists later found out that it was not the road sign in question that had been dismantled at all, and it had to be restored using taxpayers’ money. 

"The customs reform ended in roughly the same way: Marushevska left, while the customs service remained the customs service," the media expert notes. 

Tskhakaia avoided the fate of the Georgian citizens from Saakashvili’s circle who were expelled from Ukraine in 2017, and by 2020 he was already an adviser at the "Office of Simple Solutions and Results," explaining how Ukraine could quickly carry out privatization worth $10 billion. In 2021, Tskhakaia replaced Saakashvili on the Coordinating Council for Urban Planning.  He then appeared on Mykhailo Fedorov’s team at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, now as a digital transformation specialist. And when Fedorov moved to the Ministry of Defense, the adviser moved with him. 

"What exactly the adviser does in the defense sector was described in greatest detail by AIN in a profile published in March 2025, and it is a text worth reading slowly. The publication’s sources call Tskhakaia "Fedorov’s eyes on the front": he spends approximately half his time with the troops, gathers information from combat units, and keeps the minister informed. It sounds almost heroic until one remembers that an adviser at the front does not fight but gathers information—and the whole question is what that information subsequently becomes. Two AIN sources call Tskhakaia "one of the ideologues" of the NEXT unit, a structure created by the Ministry of Digital Transformation that tests advanced weapons. Drones of various types pass through NEXT before receiving codification from the Ministry of Defense, and it is through NEXT that Tskhakaia communicates not only with the military but also with manufacturers," Chieslavsky writes. 

The media expert points out that during this period large-scale deregulation of the production of drones, electronic warfare systems, ammunition, and other items is taking place. In addition, manufacturers’ margins are growing—from 1% to 25%. 

"Deregulation can indeed be an engine of development. The only question is what it becomes when the same people who later meet manufacturers at testing grounds and sit in the offices of the customer write the market rules. The investigation now appears to be calculating the answer to this question—and calculating it in hryvnias," the expert suggests. 

Chieslavsky emphasizes that for advisers such as Tskhakaia, the commodity is access to the person who makes decisions. At the same time, the adviser does not undergo a competition or special background check, does not submit declarations, does not sign orders, and does not appear in any document. 

"The entire weight of the decision falls on the official who signed it. Meanwhile, the adviser shapes public opinion. Power without a signature: that is the true specialty in which Tskhakaia has, without a doubt, become the best in Ukraine over the past ten years," the author concludes.