Dmytro Mendeleyev, a journalist at Ukrainian newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnya who has accused state company Ukroboronprom of illegally profiteering on arms sales, faces possible criminal prosecution and a lawsuit.
The scandal comes amid accusations that the Defense Ministry is failing to efficiently supply armed forces fighting in eastern Ukraine.
As of Oct. 21, the Prosecutor General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment sent by the Kyiv Post, while Dzerkalo Tyzhnya’s editor-in-chief Yulia Mostova was not available by phone.
Lukyan Selsky, an adviser to Ukroboronprom’s CEO, said by phone that he believed “Dmytro Mendeleyev” – the name of a famous Russian chemist – was a pseudonym. “We believe that there is no such person, and that (former Defense Minister Anatily) Hrytsenko is hiding behind that name,” he said. Hrytsenko, who heads the Civil Position party, is the husband of Mostova.
On Oct. 17, Dzerkalo Tyzhnya published a copy of an instruction in which the Presidential Administration asked the Prosecutor General’s Office to “prosecute the author of the article about the sales of arms and military property published in Dzerkalo Tyzhnya if the crime of disrupting the country’s defense capability is confirmed.”
The instruction was given following a meeting between President Petro Poroshenko and top officials in charge of the military and law enforcement agencies. The Presidential Administration declined to comment by phone and did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
Dzerkalo Tyzhnya also reported on Oct. 17 that Ukroboronprom and the Defense Ministry had filed a libel lawsuit against Dzerkalo Tyzhnya, Mendeleyev and Svitlana Zvarich, a volunteer helping the military who was cited by the newspaper.
Mostova said in an interview with the telekritika.ua news site published late on Oct. 20 that the first hearing of the lawsuit had been held on Oct. 10, and the next one was slated for Oct. 28.
Ukroboronprom’s Mayak factory sold assault rifles and machine guns to volunteers supplying the Azov Battalion on July 28, Dzerkalo Tyzhnya reported, citing a copy of the sale contract. The newspaper also published a number of other documents intended to prove that the sales took place.
Roman Romanov, CEO of
Ukroboronprom, said at a news conference on Oct. 21 that the company had not
supplied any weapons to private companies since the beginning of the
anti-terrorist operation on Apr. 14. However, some charity organizations have
been conducting payments for Ukroboronprom’s weaponry on behalf of the Interior
Ministry, Romanov added.
Poroshenko also denied on Oct. 18 that Ukroboronprom had sold any weapons on the domestic market during his presidency, as cited by Dzerkalo Tyzhnya.
“If the respectable publication published this information, should I teach you, my dear friends, that there should be two viewpoints?” he told Ukrainian television channels. “Present a different viewpoint. If you claim that something is sold, then specify what weapons are sold, by whom and when.”
Responding to Poroshenko’s criticism, Mostova told the telekritika.ua news site on Oct. 20 that Dzerkalo Tyzhnya did not have to get a comment from Ukroboronprom because it published documents signed by the company.
“How could they refute all those payment documents and contracts and the transfer of weapons?” she said.
In his article, published on Sept. 5, Mendeleyev accused Ukroboronprom of illegally selling assault rifles, grenade launchers, rockets and other weapons through intermediaries to volunteers supplying the military. Domestic sales of weapons by Ukroboronprom, other than those to the government, are prohibited by law, according to the newspaper.
“In eastern Ukraine, thousands of fighters are risking their lives,” he wrote. “The Defense Ministry and Ukroboronprom subsidiaries, which are supposed to supply (Ukraine’s) defenders with armor, weapons and military equipment are cynically trafficking what the front needs, selling huge amounts of arms on the domestic market.”
The newspaper argued that the Defense Ministry should provide weapons to the military free of charge.
“Why are the authorities organizing such cynical schemes of profiteering on the blood of (Ukraine’s) defenders?” the article read. “Why must fighters pay for something that the state must supply them free of charge? Why is the state imposing a “war tax” and at the same time profiteering on taxpayers who donate to the military?”
Dzerkalo Tyzhnya reported that Ukrinmash, a subsidiary of Ukroboronprom, sold 35,900 AKM assault rifles, 1,237 RPG-7V grenade launchers, 5,000 air-to-air missiles, 60 Fagot anti-tank missiles on the domestic market in January to June 2014.
The Defense Ministry sold weapons worth about 84 million hryvnias in the first half of 2014, Dzerkalo Tyzhnya said.
Military expert Vyacheslav Tseluiko said by phone that such sales were formally legal but extremely “non-transparent.”
“Now, when the military lacks military equipment, such sales border on state treason,” he said.
He said such weapons were sold at “ludicrous” prices that were significantly lower than market ones.
Kyiv Post associate business editor Ivan Verstyuk contributed to this story.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
