Supply of substandard bulletproof vests: court orders supplier linked to Mindich to pay nearly 100 million hryvnias
"MILIKON UA" LLC, a company linked to businessman Timur Mindich, has been fined 97.4 million hryvnias for supplying substandard products.
This was reported by the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, citing a ruling by the Kyiv Commercial Court in case No. 910/14189/25, according to Censor.NET.
It is noted that the case was heard in camera at the request of a representative of the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), which is the procedural successor to the State Logistics Operator following the merger of procurement agencies.
The Anti-Corruption Action Centre stated that the state contract provides for the supplier to pay penalties for the supply of substandard goods, and a corresponding court decision has been issued regarding the recovery of these penalties.
The Anti-Corruption Action Centre also noted that "MILIKON UA" LLC is a company that was mentioned in the notice of suspicion served on Timur Mindich.
"It was 'MILIKON UA' LLC that won the tender to supply bulletproof vests worth 217 million hryvnias. The company signed the contract on 27 February 2025 with the now-defunct State Enterprise ‘State Logistics Operator’ and undertook to supply the vests in batches: the first by 21 April 2025, the next by 20 May 2025, by 21 July 2025 and the last by 20 August 2025," the statement said.
However, the vests failed the quality acceptance inspection. The products used ‘Chinese-made panels’, were riddled with holes and had crooked stitching. As a result, the goods acceptance certificates were not signed.
The AntAC also recalled a conversation between Mindich and the then Minister of Defence, Rustem Umerov, in which the businessman attempted to influence the acceptance of defective goods by circumventing control procedures.
Mindich: "Do you know what happened with the vests? We won the tender, we lowered the price. And all the vests are on a prepayment basis; we brought them in at our own expense, we’ve already brought them in, they’ve been sitting in the warehouse for three months, and they don’t accept them."
Mindich: "Please, don’t leave; I mean, body armour is big money."
Umerov: "Well, as for the bulletproof vests, we were just in the finance department; to be honest, I didn’t get round to that."
Mindich: "Just get them to sign the acceptance form, that’s all. It’s just one phone call for you. Just say, ‘I don’t want to hear any more from Timur about bulletproof vests, and I meet with him twice a week.’
As a reminder:
It was previously reported that the head of the Defence Procurement Agency, Arsen Zhumadilov, confirmed that in March 2025 he met with the then Minister of Defence of Ukraine and current Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, Rustem Umerov, and businessman Timur Mindich, who is suspected of corruption, and spoke with them about bulletproof vests.
