A lawmaker from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party has been named a suspect in a corruption case involving the procurement of military drones and electronic warfare (EW) equipment.
On Saturday, Aug. 2, Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies announced they had uncovered a scheme involving illegal kickbacks from the purchase of drones and EW equipment, implicating a company director, a sitting lawmaker, two local officials, and several members of the National Guard.
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Local outlet Ukrainska Pravda, citing its law enforcement sources, named Oleksiy Kuznietsov from Zelensky’s party as the sitting lawmaker.
The outlet said Serhiy Haidai, head of Mukachevo District State Administration in the Zakarpattia region and former head of Luhansk Oblast Military Administration, and Andriy Yurchenko, head of Rubizhne City Military Administration in the Luhansk region, are the two local officials named in the case.
The identity of the National Guard personnel and the company director remains unclear.
Zelensky dismissed Haidai from his post on Saturday, the day the case was made public, via a presidential decree.
David Arakhamia, the head of Zelensky’s party, confirmed on Saturday that Kuznietsov has been suspended from the party via a Telegram update.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), without naming the suspects, said on Monday via a press release that a request has been made to detain the lawmaker with the alternative of a Hr.30 million ($720,000) bail.
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As of Tuesday, the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) has ordered the preventive detention of a company director and the head of a military unit with a bail option of Hr.2 million ($47,880).
The HACC did not announce any detention decision for the lawmaker at the time of publication.
NABU said on Monday that the case involved a 30% illegal kickback, with the equipment being delivered at an inflated price of approximately $80,000.
“One of the documented episodes involved the purchase of electronic warfare systems. For signing a contract at knowingly inflated prices, members of the group received up to 30% of the contract value as an undue advantage,” NABU wrote in its press release.
“A similar scheme was used in the procurement of [first-person view] FPV drones worth nearly Hr.10 million [$240,000]. The company delivered the products at an overestimated cost – about $80,000 more – after which part of the funds was paid out as kickbacks to group members,” it added.
President Volodymyr Zelensky also referenced the case in a social media update.
“One of the people’s deputies of Ukraine, as well as heads of district and city administrations, and servicemen of the National Guard of Ukraine were exposed for taking bribes. I am grateful to the anti-corruption bodies for their work,” Zelensky wrote on Saturday.
“There can only be zero tolerance for corruption,” he added.
The case followed Zelensky’s earlier decision to introduce – and later reverse – bills that strip the anti-graft agencies of their independence, sparking nationwide protests. Both NABU and Zelensky referred to the incident in their updates.
“It should be noted that this operation was made possible by Law No. 4560-IX, signed by the President of Ukraine, which removed a number of barriers in the work of anti-corruption bodies and contributed to the stability of their activities in sensitive investigations for the state,” NABU wrote.
“It is important that anti-corruption institutions work independently, and the law adopted on Thursday guarantees them all the opportunities for a real fight against corruption,” Zelensky wrote.
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