Former Defense Ministry official Oleksandr Liev was remanded in custody — he is suspected of embezzling ammunition and machine guns

The Oktyabrsky District Court of Poltava has imposed a preventive measure on Oleksandr Liev, the former head of the Department of Military-Technical Policy, Armament Development and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defense. He is suspected of embezzling 1.5 billion hryvnias for the purchase of ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and embezzling 193 million hryvnias for the purchase of machine guns.

This was reported by Suspilne from the courtroom.

Oleksandr Liev will be held in pre-trial detention until March 14, 2025, with an alternative bail of UAH 9.084 million. The lawyers plan to file an appeal. The hearing in the Oleksandr Liev case was postponed twice — the prosecutor did not appear.

On January 14, 2025, the State Bureau of Investigation reported a new suspicion to Liev

and two heads of a state-owned enterprise

information reference

Two heads of a state-owned enterprise are suspected of committing similar crimes, as well as of official forgery (Part 2 of Article 366, Part 2 of Article 114-1 and Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

, who supplied combat units with defective large-caliber machine guns. Investigators found that officials were supposed to supply 400 certified large-caliber machine guns to the front in 2022, but instead screwed up the deal — instead of high-quality weapons, the troops received cheap and unusable analogues (and there were only 200 of them).

The machine guns purchased at state expense were without markings, relevant technical documentation and accompanying documents. During combat use, the weapons could not conduct continuous fire and after the first shots they generally failed. Because of this, the state budget lost 193 million hryvnias. For this, the defendants face up to 15 years in prison

What preceded this

In November 2023, hromadske published an investigation into a 2022 contract between the Ministry of Defense and the Lviv Arsenal company for the purchase of 100,000 mortar shells. The contract was for 1.3 billion hryvnias, and the Ministry of Defense paid almost 100% of the amount in advance. The ammunition was never delivered. The real scheme of the deal, according to journalists, was as follows: the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine — Lviv Arsenal (Ukraine) — Sevotech (Slovakia) — WDG (Croatia) — Elmech Sintermak (Croatia). Sevotech was supposed to transfer the money to WDG, and WDG was supposed to buy ammunition from Elmech. However, Elmech stated that it did not receive the money. In the end, the money allegedly remained with Sevotech.

On January 26, 2024, it became known that the Ministry of Defense won the court case against Lviv Arsenal, which was supposed to supply 100 thousand ammunition for mortars. Lviv Arsenal must pay the Ministry of Defense more than 1.3 billion hryvnias in advance payment, 90.6 million in penalties and 96.7 million in fines for failure to deliver the mines. As part of this case, the companyʼs accounts and other movable and immovable property were seized.

On January 27, the SBU announced suspicions against five people for embezzling funds for the purchase of shells. The suspicions were received by the former and current heads of the Department of Military-Technical Policy, Armament Development and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defense (Olexandr Liev and Toomas Nakhkur), the head and commercial director of the Lviv Arsenal company, as well as their accomplice, a representative of a foreign commercial structure. The suspects face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property. Toomas Nakhkur was removed from his duties on February 2, and the same day the court imposed personal obligations on him.

In February 2024, Liev was taken into custody with the alternative of bail of 50 million hryvnias, and a month later he was released home on personal recognizance. In April of the same year, the Supreme Court of Criminal Appeals did not choose a preventive measure for him.