A large-scale scheme to steal assets from a state-owned defense enterprise has been exposed in Ukraine. Instead of preparing the assets for privatization, the former acting general director organized their complete destruction. As a result, workshops were dismantled for scrap metal, and the proceeds were used to purchase a luxury car fleet.
The asset destruction scheme
According to RBK-Ukraine, citing the Office of the General Prosecutor, law enforcement officials recorded how the manager, together with three subordinates, dismantled equipment, cut it up, and delivered it to scrap yards. The participants of the scheme coordinated the arrival of metal buyers by phone and organized the removal. The damage to the state is estimated in millions of hryvnias.
This is not the first episode in the criminal proceedings. Previously, the manager and the chief engineer were already informed of suspicion of obtaining undue advantage: they rented out the warehouse premises of the state enterprise without concluding contracts.
Luxury amidst war
Against the backdrop of military hostilities, the suspect acquired a collection of expensive cars. His garage came to house a BMW M8, a Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class, and a Lamborghini Murciélago. The investigation established that the vehicles were registered to relatives and acquaintances, although the actual user was the director himself, which he did not declare anywhere.
The Audi RS7 scam and fake declarations
One of the most illustrative episodes was the purchase of an Audi RS7 in 2024. The car was purchased for 4 million hryvnias, but on the same day it was registered to the suspect's mother with the contract stating a value of only 100,000 hryvnias. Thus, the car price in the documents was understated 40-fold in a single day.
Six months later, the Audi was re-registered to a third party for 4.2 million hryvnias, however, the car did not appear in the 2024 declaration. The amount of inaccurate information in the 2024 declaration amounts to 11.5 million hryvnias, and for 2025 — almost 13 million hryvnias. The man has now been informed of a new suspicion for knowingly entering false data into documents.
Corruption in law enforcement agencies
Parallel to the investigation at the defense plant, another official was exposed in the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF). The commander of the grouping, Robert Brovdy, declared zero tolerance for corruption and transferred the materials to the State Bureau of Investigation. The official was caught taking a bribe of $2,000 for the employment of a serviceman.
Recall that previously, corruption was also detected within the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). In the Rivne region, two deputies of the heads of regional administrations were caught red-handed demanding $620,000 from the head of an amber mining company. The perpetrators were caught during the transfer of part of the bribe.
The pre-trial investigation into the case of the plundering of the defense enterprise has been completed, and the suspects have been granted access to the materials of the criminal proceedings for review.
