Hrynkevych case: former Defense Ministry official arrested on bail of UAH 50 million
15 November 16:17
Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court arrested the former director of the Defense Ministry’s department and set him bail at UAH 50 million. The former official is suspected of reducing fines for Lviv businessman Ihor Hrynkevych. This was reported by Komersant ukrainskyi with reference to the State Bureau of Investigation.
“He ‘wrote off’ almost 94 million hryvnias in fines to a Lviv businessman who had overdue the supply of goods to the Defense Ministry under a number of contracts,” the statement reads.
The SBI reported that in 2023, Hrynkevych’s companies signed 23 contracts with the Defense Ministry for the supply of military uniforms worth more than UAH 1.5 billion. To avoid fines for failing to meet the deadlines, the businessmen appealed to the acting director of the Defense Ministry’s department, who extended the delivery time, even for already fulfilled contracts. Hrynkevych’s fines were reduced 20 times – from UAH 98 million to UAH 4.5 million.
Law enforcement officers did not name the suspect in their report, but according toUP’s source, it is Maksym Hrytsenko. In 2023, he served as the director of the resource support department and was connected to the Hrynkevych case.
The Hrynkevych case
Ihor Hrynkevych is accused of allegedly attempting to bribe one of the heads of the SBI’s Main Investigation Department. He allegedly offered USD 500,000 for assistance in returning the seized property (uniforms for the Armed Forces of Ukraine), which the SBI had been holding at customs for several months.
Ihor’s son, Roman Hrynkevych , was suspected in the case of contracts with the Ministry of Defense to provide the Armed Forces with uniforms. At first, he was accused of allegedly embezzling public funds, and then the qualification was changed to complaints about the quality of the uniforms supplied.
Amid the scandal, the Ministry of Defense canceled contracts with Hrynkevych’s company. It is also known that the Ministry of Defense had no complaints about the delivered goods, and at the time of the contract execution, it did not draw up any complaint reports.
