The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) said yesterday that it had arrested defense officials accused of being involved in the supply of tens of thousands of defective shells after the Russian invasion of the country, Agence France-Presse reported, BTA reported.
Among those detained is the director of a plant in the Dnipropetrovsk region, his deputy, a former head of a department at the Defense Ministry and a military inspector.
"The defendants used poor-quality materials and performed poor-quality work on the production of shells, as a result of which they were defective," a statement from the SSU said.
According to the security service, the goal was to defraud by reducing production costs in order to make a greater profit from public procurement, with the complicity of military officials who "turned a blind eye to the batch of defective ammunition and entered false information into the documents".
Those detained in the case are accused of "obstructing the activities of the armed forces" and face 15 years in prison.
The scandal erupted at the end of last year, when soldiers began to complain about the shells and this was reflected in the media space.
Since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, several cases of corruption have been revealed in the armed forces and the Ministry of Defense.
They were related to the misuse of funds for the purchase of artillery shells, daily rations, uniforms and body armor for soldiers.