The Ministry of Defense ordered the production of drones of dubious quality from a company owned by the wife of ex-Deputy Boryslav Rosenblat.
This is stated in the Bihus.info investigation.
According to journalists, in December 2022, the Ministry of Defense ordered 55 HAWK drones for UAH 807 million and paid an advance of UAH 650 million. Ukrainian Aviation Systems LLC, owned by Rosenblattʼs wife, will produce them by mid-August.
According to Bihus.info, during the training for UAV operators in mid-July, the drones took off once in a while, crashed, and gave a low-quality picture. Rosenblatt himself then assured that by the time the exercises were completed, and the order was handed over, all deficiencies would be corrected.
The day before the contract was handed over, on August 14, it turned out that only four of the 55 ordered "birds" were ready for handover, according to the Bihus.info investigation.
As the journalists note, the manufacturer assured that it has had serial production of HAWK complexes on the market since 2018.
During the test flight, the first drone took off, but later lost the picture. Then Rosenblatt assumed that the board had overheated and asked to give the UAV a "second chance," the journalistsʼ investigation says. During the second flight, the drone took off, but it failed to land. As a result, broken wings and a crack on the nose. Rosenblatt explained this with the "features of the model."
Problems also arose with other complexes, the journalists say. In total, only one of the 4 complexes was functioning normally.
The Ministry of Defense has postponed the "deadline" for the delivery of the first batch of drones to October, Bihus.info notes.
- Borislav Rosenblat is a former Peopleʼs Deputy who was one of the participants in the "amber case" conducted by NABU. He, as well as another ex-deputy Maksym Polyakov, were suspected of lobbying for changes to the legislation on amber mining for bribes. The amount of bribes received in the specified case exceeded 300 thousand hryvnias. In 2019, Rosenblatt won the trial in the "amber case", later the case "stalled".