Case of 120,000 faulty mortar shells: Director of Pavlohrad Chemical Plant Shyman arrested for two months
Shevchenkivskyi Court detains Director of Pavlohrad Chemical Plant (PChP) Leonid Shyman for two months.
According to Censor.NET, this was reported by the Anti-Corruption Center.
An investigative judge of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court granted a motion by the SSU investigator and ordered the detention of Leonid Shyman, director of the Pavlohrad Chemical Plant.
Shyman will remain in pre-trial detention until June 27, 2025.
He has headed the Pavlohrad Chemical Plant since the Yanukovych era. Shyman is also a suspect in a separate case investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), where he is accused of abuse of office that allegedly led to financial losses of UAH 43.3 million for the state-owned enterprise.
In 2021, NABU reported that due to mismanagement, the Pavlohrad Chemical Plant failed to receive UAH 43 million in revenue.In response, Shyman, as the CEO of the Pavlohrad Chemical Plant, claimed: "The case was fabricated at the request of mining and processing plant owners."
He is also a suspect in a separate case involving alleged abuses totaling nearly UAH 28.5 million.
Case of supplying faulty mortar shells to the Armed Forces of Ukraine
On April 29, 2025, the Security Service of Ukraine detained the managers of a defense plant in the Dnipropetrovsk region that supplied faulty mines to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
On April 30, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv ordered the detention without bail of Mykhailo Shkurenko, former head of one of the Defence Ministry’s military representative offices, and Yurii Yaretsko, head of the inspection group.
Faulty mortar shells supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine
On November 6, 2024, it was reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine received a low-quality batch of 120 mm mortar shells manufactured by Ukroboronprom.
On 20 November, a video of mines manufactured by "Ukroboronprom" malfunctioning was released.
The Ministry of Defence said it was investigating the situation.
Also, journalist Yuliia Kyrienko-Merinova said that after the situation with the low-quality 120mm mortar shells was publicised, a batch of 82mm mortar rounds, which also turned out to be defective, was recalled from the frontline.
On December 6, Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine Herman Smetanin told the Verkhovna Rada that out of millions of mines produced, the military had recorded only 417 cases of malfunction. Smetanin attributed the problems with mines to the quality of imported gunpowder.
On December 31, it became known that low-quality mortar shells had appeared in the units in the Vremivka direction, near Velyka Novosilka.
On January 9, 2025, Butusov stated that after the publication of the article about the faulty mortar shells, the 151st Brigade received quality ammunition.
The Command of the Logistics Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated that the soldiers of the 151st Separate Mechanised Brigade did not receive low-quality mortar shells.
