A Ukrainian company contracted to manufacture critically needed land- and anti-personnel mines for the front pocketed nearly Hr.3 billion ($69.8 million) in taxpayer money and instead sent small volumes of munitions that frequently failed to function and sometimes blew up as troops handled them, a senior Kyiv law enforcement official announced Friday.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said his office had conducted searches and notified ten people that they were potential suspects in the case, in comment accompanied by video published on his personal Facebook page.
Major Ukrainian media outlets reported that Kravchenko’s claims were credible, but that court proceedings in connection with the case had not yet begun. By Constitutional statute, Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office is the country’s central body responsible for criminal prosecution.
The independent news platform Glavkom said the private company concluded five state contracts with the Department of Military-Technical Policy of the Ministry of Defense, the Defense Procurement Agency, and the Logistics Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for over, if completed in full, Hr.10 billion ($230 million). Under the terms of those contracts, more than 360,000 mines of various types were to have been supplied.
Kravchehnko’s comments said that his office began investigating for possible fraud in the contracts’ fulfillment after receiving reports in late 2024 of a “dangerous shortage” of mines from multiple frontline units, and complaints that mines delivered to the front were functioning poorly.The Prosecutor General’s Office has found compelling evidence that the perpetrators used a fictitious company with no production experience to supply defective mines to the armed forces and also embezzled advance payments for contracts for which no deliveries took place, he said.
Instead of using state funds to set up and run high-quality mine manufacturing, company officers appear to have sought out “third-party equipment, which was later reissued to other companies,” Kravchenko said. Of the ten individuals charged, four have been detained, he said.
Suspects if prosecuted as charged would be accused of causing total losses to the Ukrainian state worth Hr.2.994 billion ($69.95 million), of which Hr.571.3 million ($13.29 milllion) of Ukrainian taxpayer money was wasted on defective mines delivered, and Hr.2.423 billion ($56.36) was “appropriated” by the company’s management for setting up a manufacturing line that was never put into operation.
Prior to Friday, the biggest military contracting fraud cases alleged in Ukraine included a 2024 case involving the delivery of some 100,000 faulty mortar rounds worth about $40 million to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and a 2025 case involving alleged illegal transfers of $25-40 million worth of state funds allocated towards army uniform production. Court proceedings against the accused in both of those cases are in progress.Kravchenko said his office’s investigation is ongoing to determine the total value of all damages, identify all involved, return lost money to the state where possible, and prosecute and secure criminal sentences for persons found guilty. Under Ukrainian law, the most severe penalty for embezzlement or other criminal misdirection of state funds is twelve years imprisonment and confiscation of all personal property.
Potentially, should persons involved in the delivery of faulty land mines be judged guilty of causing the death or injury of Ukrainian service personnel, they might face additional manslaughter and/or criminal neglect charges with an additional maximum sentence of twelve years’ imprisonment.
Kravchenko’s report did not identify the company or the type of mine manufactured.
Images in a video accompanying the public announcement showed an anti-personnel mine similar to the NATO-standard Claymore anti-personnel mine, a plate-sized device designed to stop infantry attacks by blasting a dense cloud of steel ball bearings in an attacker’s direction. The report singled out the mines’ detonators as a particularly weak point due to insufficient charge
The report did not make clear whether or not the anti-personnel mines actually were used in combat operations. Had they been so used, they would have complicated and possibly compromised Ukrainian army defenses, which, since late 2024, have largely been attacked by groups of Russian infantrymen on foot – the exact threat a Claymore-type mine is designed to stop.Prosecutor office technicians making independent analysis of the mines concluded that the weapons were not suitable for war use because of poor reliability, insufficient damage caused if the mine did go off, and danger to troops handling them. Other images showed armed law enforcers conducting searches of private residences, but no context for those images was given.
Recorded conversations published by Kravchenko, he said, implicate company representatives with their own complaints that the mines sometimes were unsafe to handle and could blow up on their own, and that, at other times, did not detonate as designed.
A conversation between two “possibly involved persons” showed members of the supply chain were aware of the mines’ shortcomings, but that deliveries of faulty mines was continuing. One exchange transcript published by the UNIAN news agency showed frustration and anger.
Participant 5: “Good day! What the f*ck have you guys just sent me again? What is this, you’re using recycled raw materials?”Participant 4: “We sent a conversion. Instead of a normal production item (mine) we made a conversion out of some ammunition.”
Particpant 5: “I am just fed up with all this. If anyone besides us, I mean, if God forbid information about this gets out, then you and I are going to prison!”
Allegations of systematic corruption at the top levels of the Ukrainian state, particularly involving military materials contracting, have dogged the administration of President Volodymyr Zelensky since his election in March 2019.
In November 2025, a new scandal erupted with reports of kickbacks and embezzlement involving the state nuclear company Energoatom and businessmen closely associated with senior Zelensky administration officials. Zelensky’s long-time friend and then number two man in the president’s office, Andriy Yermak, was forced to resign in the wake of the Energoatom corruption claims, as were Ukraine’s ministers of justice and energy.
In December, Zelensky announced a major reshuffle and “reset” of the Presidential Office “to restore trust (and), decentralize decision-making.” Zelensky supporters since then have claimed his administration intends to crack down on corruption and particularly criminality in military contracting.
Zelensky critics have said the latest round of appointments at the top of his administration is a smoke screen intended to distract public attention from widespread looting of state assets by Zelensky appointees.