The director of the Kyiv Armor Repair Plant from which a tank was recently stolen has been remanded into custody, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema has said.
When addressing a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada committee for
legislation and law enforcement, Yarema said that the Prosecutor’s
Office investigating crimes in the defense industry had opened several
criminal cases against employees of the defense industry and the
structural divisions of enterprises, among them the Kyiv Armor Repair
Plant, which are members of the Ukroboronprom state-run concern.
“The director of this plant [Eduard Ilyin] was remanded into custody
today. He is suspected of being directly involved in misappropriating
and embezzling funds,” the prosecutor general said.
The disappearance of one tank from the plant was reported on Aug. 12, Yarema said.
Meanwhile, it was established that seven tanks slated for sale under a
foreign contract actually belong to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and
cannot be exported.
Seventy-eight infantry fighting vehicles were in storage at the Zhytomyr Armored Tank Repair Plant, Yarema said.
“But when we needed to use them in the army operation [in eastern
Ukraine], it turned out all weapons had been dismantled from them,” he
said.
