After military complaints, requirements for production and delivery of 120-mm mines to front have been updated
Some mines had significant over- or under-flying, even with the same mortar settings, which the military publicly complained about in May. After pressure from the Defense Ministry's PAC and drawing attention to the problem of poor-quality mines, a joint commission of the SBU, the Defense Ministry, and the Ministry of Strategic Industries was formed.
According to Censor.NET, this was reported by Yurii Hudymenko, a veteran and chairman of the Public Anti-Corruption Council at the Defense Ministry, who initiated the creation of an interagency commission to investigate.
After a detailed inspection, the experts found that some of the mines were of poor quality, probably due to improper storage conditions, which significantly affects the accuracy of the shots. Based on this, the commission recommended revising the requirements for mortar ammunition.
This precedent is only the first step towards significant changes in the quality of ammunition, saving the lives of our soldiers, and more effective destruction of the enemy.
"When they do it well, they do it well," said Gudymenko, who himself was seriously injured in the Kharkiv region in 2022 under enemy mortar fire, and thanked the Ministry of Strategic Industries for the quality of the work done.
In April, the director of the Pavlohrad Chemical Plant, his deputy, and two representatives of the military representative office at the plant were detained in a case involving defective 120-mm mines. According to Hudymenko, despite the fact that the plant is subordinated to the Ministry of Strategic Industries, no official of the ministry has been suspected. The Defense Ministry's PAC appealed to the SBU to investigate their role.
As a reminder, on November 6, 2024, it was reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine received a low-quality batch of 120 mm mines manufactured by Ukroboronprom.
On November 20, a video of mines manufactured by Ukroboronprom malfunctioning was released.
The Ministry of Defense reported that it was investigating the situation.
Journalist Yulia Kiriyenko-Merinova also said that after the situation with the low-quality 120-mm mines was publicized, a batch of 82-mm mortar rounds was seized from the frontline, which also turned out to be defective.
On December 6, the Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine Herman Smetanin said in the Verkhovna Rada that out of millions of mines produced, the military had recorded only 417 cases of malfunction. Smetanin attributed the problems with the mines to the quality of imported gunpowder.
On December 31, it became known that low-quality mines had been delivered to units in the Vremivsk direction, in the area of Velyka Novosilka.
On January 9, 2025, Butusov said that after the publication of the material about the defective mines, the 151st Brigade received quality ammunition.
The Command of the Logistics Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated that the military of the 151st Separate Mechanized Brigade did not receive low-quality mines.
In March, it was reported that no penalties were imposed on manufacturers who produced defective 120 mm mines, and that additional agreements were being signed with unscrupulous suppliers to extend the delivery time.
At the end of April, the SSU detained executives of a defense plant in Dnipropetrovs'k region that had supplied defective mines to the Armed Forces. The court also arrested two former Defense Ministry officials without bail.
