The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office (SAP) have exposed a corruption scheme in the defense sector — it concerns abuse in the development of the automated system of the Operational Command Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine "DZVIN".
This was reported by the press services of NABU and SAPO.
According to the case materials, the state lost 246 million hryvnias due to this scheme. It includes
- former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General;
- former Chief of the Signal Corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Major General;
- former head of the Automation Development Department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, colonel;
- The director of a private company is the main executor of the contract.
The investigation found that in 2016, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract to develop the system with a commercial company that had no experience in creating software. Over the course of four years of development, the technical specifications were changed 13 times, which increased the cost of the work by 300 million hryvnias.
Meanwhile, the number of prototypes of the system was increased from 4 to 12 without justification. This led to additional costs for adjusting documentation — 115 million hryvnias.
NABU and SAP found out that the developed system did not meet the technical requirements. In particular, it was incompatible with NATO protocols and did not integrate with other military systems. Part of the software turned out to be unnecessary — out of the 200 information and calculation tasks set, ten were used.
During the investigation, as the press services write, detectives and prosecutors tried to prevent them from conducting the case. Those involved in the scheme began to hide key documentation about the financing and development of the project. And after the investigation began, they accelerated the work and modernized the system for free to make it more similar to the original plan.
The DZVIN system was officially adopted by the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the end of 2022, and additional funding was planned to be allocated for it in 2024.
"This may indicate attempts not only to hide previous corruption abuses, but also to continue them," NABU and SAP summarized.
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