Ukraine has arrested the management of an arms maker and former defense officials for supplying the military with 120,000 rounds of defective mortar rounds in 2024.
The arrests were likely connected with Kyiv’s recall of 120mm mortar rounds from the front in late 2024, where errors reported at the time included faulty fuses, low-quality firing pins, weak propellant, low-grade explosives and cheap packing materials that let in the damp.
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The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in its Tuesday press release that the firm, from Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, cut costs by using inferior components, and the former officials concealed the poor performance by entering false data into their evaluation reports.
“As a result of comprehensive measures in the Dnipropetrovsk region, the general director of a defense plant and his first deputy were detained, who supplied the Armed Forces of Ukraine with a batch of ammunition that turned out to be unsuitable for combat use,” the SBU said.
“In addition to the heads of the state-owned enterprise, SBU officers detained the former head of one of the military offices of the Ministry of Defense and the head of the control group of the relevant unit,” it added, without specifying the name of the company involved.
The SBU said the firm signed a state contract to supply 120mm rounds in early 2024, but it “used low-quality materials and performed work with defects, which led to the failure of the main propellant capsule and the lack of stable operation of the entire powder charge.”
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It added that “propellant charges that did not meet combat standards” were used to make the shells, in an attempt to further cut down the costs and “get more profit from the government order.”
The firm also involved officials tasked with quality control, the SBU said.
“According to the case materials, military officials deliberately ‘turned a blind eye’ to the defective batch of ammunition and entered false information into the reporting documentation,” it said.
“As a result, 120,000 unusable rounds reached the front, which was confirmed by expert opinions.”
All four detainees face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
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