The Polish company PHU “Lechmar” has completed deliveries to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBSU) under a contract worth UAH 23 billion.
This was reported to Babel by the spokesman for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Andriy Demchenko. The companyʼs spokeswoman Karolina Syudyla also said about the completion of deliveries in an interview with the Polish media outlet Wprost on June 12.
According to Demchenko, all deliveries have been completed in full — the ammunition has already been transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Previously, the Border Guard Service was delegated the authority to carry out defense purchases for the needs of the army. At the same time, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine determined which goods were needed and in what quantity.
Demchenko stated that the cost of ammunition, for which the contract was concluded, was one of the lowest. Pricing and delivery conditions were constantly monitored by the relevant Ukrainian authorities.
According to Babel, Lechmar was supposed to deliver the products under this contract by the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Babelʼs interlocutor at the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine reported that the contracts were fully fulfilled by May of this year, with the main deliveries being on time. He added that the deliveries of a small part of the ammunition could have been postponed due to force majeure circumstances.
What preceded
At the end of December 2024, the Ministry of Defense transferred UAH 23 billion to the State Border Guard Service. This money was taken from the Defense Procurement Agency, which, according to the ministry, did not have time to spend the budget allocated to it.
Anti-corruption activists — the head of the Central Anti-Corruption Commission Vitaly Shabunin and the editor-in-chief of Nashi Groze Yuriy Nikolov — called it a scam and said that the border guards and the ministry had “squeezed the money” and were planning to “saw it down”.
In particular, Nikolov emphasized that the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine planned to purchase weapons through the dubious Polish company PHU “Lechmar” — not a manufacturer, but simply a “shim” with a bad reputation. Later, it turned out that “Lechmar” was actually a well-known intermediary in the arms market.
On March 24, 2025, the MP from “Voice” Yaroslav Zheleznyak published the State Security Service of Ukraineʼs response to his parliamentary inquiry and stated that the anti-corruption activists were right — “Lechmar” had failed to deliver weapons under the latest contracts. Babel analyzed all of MP Zheleznyakʼs statements and explained where he was wrong.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.