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20 September, 2021
The Ministry of Defence plans to secretly spend UAH 95 billion on armaments - NAKO

The Ministry of Defence plans to spend UAH 95 billion on modernizing armaments and military equipment by 2024.

This information was received by the Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (NAKO) in response to a budget request to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine regarding the program “Development, procurement, modernization, and repair of weapons, military equipment, tools, and equipment” for 2020-24.

The largest amount of funds, UAH 58 billion, is planned to be spent on purchasing and modernizing military equipment for the Armed Forces, UAH 25.8 billion on repairing equipment, and UAH 3.2 billion on developing the communication system.

The Ministry of Defence needs UAH 300 million annually for ammunition production.

NAKO pays attention to the fact that procuring weapons and military equipment remains completely secret in Ukraine, which makes anti-corruption control impossible. For example, in 2022, the expected average cost of one car will increase to UAH 11.5 million. While this year, a car will cost UAH 2.1 million. But which vehicles are in question, cars or trucks, ambulances or jeeps, it is impossible to draw conclusions based on the “secret” label

A similar situation applies to the budget request for the purchase of unmanned aerial vehicles. In 2021, the average cost per unit of UAVs is be UAH 2.6 million, and in 2022, it will be hundreds of times more - UAH 809.7 million. Due to excessive clutter, it is not possible to analyze how justified such a difference in price is.

Last year, the Ministry of Defence spent UAH 25.6 billion on modernizing armaments and military equipment. During the period January-July this year, UAH 14 billion was spent on similar purchases.

NAKO recommends that the Ministry of Defence take concrete measures to reduce the level of secrecy, which makes it impossible to have anti-corruption control over military procurement. Namely:

1. Introduce competitive defence procurement instead of a secret state defence order;

2. Organize purchases of military goods and equipment (for example, vehicles), the characteristics of which are well known, through open competitive procurement procedures;

3. Introduce quarterly reporting by the Ministry of Defence on the results of the budget program “Development, procurement, modernization, and repair of weapons, military equipment, tools, and equipment.”