Umierov’s "Ministry of Sabotage"
In November, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented the Ukraine Resilience Plan, a list of changes to strengthen the country from within. A month earlier, the president had handed over a five-point Victory Plan with three secret annexes to the allies, which was supposed to turn the tide of the war with Russia in Ukraine’s favor. Readers have already seen dozens of discussions about the content of both plans in the media and on social media.
However, we are confident that whatever Zelenskyy's "external or internal" victory plan is, there is no strong defence minister in the president's team today who can implement it.
As noted by the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia weekly, more than two months ago they published an article entitled "Umierov's Ministry of Chaos." Its summary is simple: in his year as Defence Minister, Umierov has only achieved real results in procurement and digitalization. However, these changes have taken place not because of the minister, but in spite of him.
In this article, we have clearly articulated which areas of the ministry need urgent repair and proposed specific management steps that can fix the most important processes in the ministry. These are the "chaotic" management system in the MoD, international cooperation and defence procurement.
Without success in these three areas, any of Zelenskyy's plans will not work. For the Front and Weapons priorities, Zelensky needs a Ministry of Defence with clear management, capable of directing the General Staff, taking responsibility and saying no to anyone when necessary. Without strong military diplomacy from the Ministry of Defence, we will not see Western weapons, and local production will not survive without international investment, controlled exports and access to Western defence technology. In our opinion, the minister has not addressed any of these issues.
Below, we will try to explain in detail how the chaos in the ministry is gradually turning into sabotage and subversion, and turning Umerov's ministry into a "ministry of defeat".
Has Umerov been able to improve procurement? No
Firstly, there was a public and clumsy attempt to remove the head of the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), Maryna Bezrukova, who is known even outside Ukraine for her efficiency and integrity. To do this, Umerov's old friend and deputy for procurement, Dmytro Klimenkov, proposed to liquidate the Defence Procurement Agency by absorbing it into the much smaller State Logistics Operator (SLO). He was given this task by the minister. Both Klimenkov and Umerov justified all of this with "NATO standards", which turned out to be a lie, and the NATO Representation had to publicly deny it. It was only due to pressure from civil society experts and international partners that the minister backed away from the idea of liquidating the DPA and submitted candidates for the agency's supervisory board, who were approved by the government on 11 October. However, the Supervisory Board of the Agency has not started working.
Dmytro Klimenkov, SSU
As of the end of November, the Supervisory Board is not legally competent and cannot play its role as a safeguard against the political dismissal of the head of DPA. The conclusion of contracts with board members is delayed due to documentary formalities. As a result, the supervisory board cannot conclude a contract with the current head of the DPA, and her dismissal can be implemented by a single decision of the Minister of Defence.
Second, the special exporters have not been liquidated. After a high-profile investigation into corruption in the work of one of the special exporters, "Spetstechnoexport", Umerov announced the transfer of the company from the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine to the Ministry of Defence and the subsequent liquidation of the enterprise.
As a reminder, it is through "Spetstechnoexport" and two other companies, "Ukrspetsexport" and "Progress", that weapons are often supplied at inflated prices and through dubious intermediaries, or deliveries are disrupted despite significant prepayments.
The elimination of special exporters (depriving them of their import functions) is a real NATO requirement, and Ukraine must fulfil it without waiting for the end of martial law.
However, two months after the announcement, neither the Minister of Defence nor his deputies have provided any information on the results of the purge. As a result, we assume that Ukraine continues to receive more expensive weapons in smaller quantities.
Thirdly, the procurement function in the Ministry is dualised and dispersed, and the not entirely transparent scheme of financing research and development is still in place.
The most scandalous department of the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Military and Technical Policy (DMTP), is still in operation. The DMTP continues to service all arms agreements signed before the establishment of the DPA, and also retains a monopoly on the procurement of defence innovations through the outdated Soviet procedure of "research and development work". The total value of these contracts is over UAH 410 billion as of the beginning of 2024.
The head of the notorious department is still Toomas Nakhur, who is suspected of embezzling UAH 1.5 billion in mortar rounds. Most of the employees who serviced the scandalous contracts are also in place. Neither the Accounting Chamber nor the Main Inspectorate of the Ministry of Defence itself has inspected the DMTP.
Today, the DMTP actually duplicates the functions of the newly created Procurement Policy Department (PPD). Both departments are involved in prioritising the list of weapons to be purchased at the request of the General Staff. The motives of both departments and others involved in the "prioritisation" remain a mystery.
All of this is overseen by Deputy Minister Dmytro Klimenkov, who is so indispensable (or trouble-free) that in addition to defence procurement with a total budget of over UAH 800 billion, Umerov has given him several new "money" areas with high corruption risks. We are talking about three MoD departments: capital investments (construction of housing for the military), defence land and MoD funds (training grounds, partly construction of fortifications, etc.), and corporate management (about 100 state-owned enterprises subordinated to the MoD, among the most famous are "Motor Sich" and "Ukrnafta"). Thus, Umerov has only one deputy in charge of four highly complex "money" and risky areas, and he is a close friend and ex-business partner of the minister.
The problem of chaotic and unsystematic management has not been solved by the minister, but has become a new culture
The Ministry of Defence, with full resources, support from the government and parliament, civil society and international donors, is walking on crutches because the minister does not delve deeply enough, does not understand and does not personally manage.
Umerov himself does not hide this and calls this style "delegation of responsibility".
This "delegation" has already led to the Ministry of Defence withdrawing at least 100,000 domestically produced mines from the frontline. The reason is that the mines are of inadequate quality. This is controlled by a department directly subordinate to the Minister of Defence, the so-called military representatives. As the journalists found out, these military representatives turned a blind eye to the obvious inability of the domestic plant to produce large volumes of shells of proper quality and, despite this, recommended signing a contract with it. All the reports of the military representatives were put on the table of the Ministry of Defence. It was only when mines started exploding on the Internet and social media, and not at the front, that Umerov's ministry began to respond.
"Weapons" is the third point of the President's Resilience Plan. It refers to increasing domestic production of guns and artillery shells, missiles and drones in cooperation with partners. We can see the ability of the current head of the Ministry of Defence to implement this point in practice - at the most crucial period of the war, the military lacked mortar shells.
"Delegation of responsibility" creates fertile ground for sabotaging any changes: different departments in the ministry can duplicate each other's functions, friends of deputies can oversee a bunch of "money" areas, and advisers and assistants to the minister are allowed to command the deputies themselves.
For example, two of Umerov's long-time friends and business partners, Snaver Seithaliliev (since 2021, former deputy to Oleksii Reznikov as Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories) and Lenur Mambetov, are entitled to distribute tasks on behalf of the Defence Minister. Both are registered with the Ministry as freelance advisers to the Secretary of State on a pro bono basis. Although the State Secretary himself has not been in the Ministry since October, he has been replaced by an acting one.
Snaver Seithaliliev
Lenur Mambetov
Umerov, Mambetov and Seithaliliev started their careers simultaneously in the 2000s at "Astelit", which later became known as Lifecell, a joint venture between Rinat Akhmetov and Turkish mobile operator Turkcell.
Despite the lack of formal positions in the MoD, which means no access to state secrets, no need to file an electronic declaration, and no need to undergo special checks, advisers often attend important meetings within the MoD and, therefore, may have access to sensitive information.
According to unofficial databases widely used by investigative journalists to obtain information about Russian citizens, Seithaliliev and Mambetov have Russian passports. We have data from the registers that may indicate that both of the minister's confidants have Russian citizenship. Most likely, this is due to the occupation of Crimea, where Lenur and Snaver's families lived for some time, as well as to doing business on the peninsula after the occupation.
The extracts from business registers of the USA, Turkey, Ukraine, Panama, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa, Estonia, Tunisia, Canada and other countries we obtained confirm (see documents 1 and documents 2) that Snaver Seithaliliev, Lenur Mambetov and Rustem Umerov have been reliable business partners in structures related to Turkish investments and influence in Ukraine for almost two decades.
It is not surprising why Seithaliliev and Mambetov, on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, are involved in numerous official visits to Turkey. Umerov himself, as Minister of Defence, has made at least three official visits to Turkey, while his first visit to Denmark, which provides us with the most arms aid among other countries as a percentage of GDP, took place only in November 2024.
The Ministry of Defence is turning into a "Turkish court". This is a cause for concern for our key ally, the United States, which is particularly concerned about the protection of its defence technologies. The possibility of Seithaliliev and Mambetov's access to sensitive information in the Ministry of Defence and the commitment of key Ukrainian defence officials to Turkey is a potential threat. Despite the fact that Turkey is a NATO member, relations between Washington and Ankara, especially in the field of defence cooperation, are quite tense.
The Americans wonder why Ukraine, already under Umerov, decided to build together with Turkey, and later promised to buy, the fifth-generation KAAN fighter aircraft, which Turkey is developing as an alternative to the US F-35.
During Donald Trump's first term in office, the United States excluded Turkey from the programme to switch to the fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets because of the Turks' decision to purchase the S-400 air defence system from Russia.
At a joint press conference with Erdogan in November 2019, Trump noted that Turkey's acquisition of the S-400 systems posed "very serious challenges". The Pentagon believes that the Russian system will be used to collect confidential information about sensitive technologies inside the F-35.
In general, the US has repeatedly imposed sanctions on the Turkish defence industry for its cooperation with the Russian defence sector, and Turkish citizens have been accused of spying on the Turkish government in the field of defence technology in the US.
However, Umerov's proximity to Turkey as head of the Ministry of Defence should be of concern not only to the Americans, but also to President Zelenskyy, whose defence policy the minister is supposed to implement.
Turkey did not impose economic sanctions against Russia, and until October this year continued to supply sensitive defence technologies, including those of American origin, to Russia, for which it received a series of public warnings from the White House. And now it is asking the US to ease sanctions against "Gazprombank" in order to pay Moscow for gas.
At the G20 summit, the Turkish president presented his peace plan for Ukraine, which differs significantly from Zelenskyy's Victory Plan and includes a freeze on the war along the contact line, Ukraine's refusal to join NATO for at least ten years, and a demilitarised zone in eastern Donbas. Erdogan also openly condemned the Biden administration's decision to grant Ukraine even limited permission to strike deep into Russia with Western long-range weapons, a decision that has long been a priority for Ukraine.
According to our information, Ukraine's leadership believes that Umerov and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin have a "special chemistry" in their relationship. In reality, there is a significant level of distrust of Umerov in the United States, and especially in the Pentagon, due to his close relations with Turkey and the Middle East in general. Thus, with a second Trump presidency, the rejection of Umerov in US circles can only grow.
During one of his last visits to Washington, Minister Umerov could not really explain the details of Zelenskyy's five-point Victory Plan. That is why Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna went to America with Chief of the General Staff Anatolii Bargylevych to explain Zelenskyy's plan instead of the Defence Minister. According to our sources in Washington, it was during this visit that American officials received answers to important questions they were interested in in the context of considering the decision on long-range strikes - and it was from Bargylevych, not Umerov.
Under these circumstances, it can be argued that, despite the daily positive posts on Facebook about the minister's foreign visits, the Ministry of Defence has failed in the area of military diplomacy.
In September last year, the Congress began to have problems voting on a law on military and other aid for Ukraine - the so-called supplemental. The main reason for these problems was expressed in a position paper by California Congressman Mike Garcia, a former Marine who served in Iraq. In a lengthy report, he described the conditions for supporting Ukraine, including the need for a realistic plan for victory, clearly developed by President Biden and Zelenskyy, with a cost and timeframe. Garcia demanded that the White House specify how the weapons sent to Ukraine would help achieve the goals set out in the victory strategy.
Congressman Michael Waltz, recently nominated by Trump to the post of national security adviser, also joined Garcia's demands. Waltz is also a professional military officer who served in the US Army's elite special operations forces, the so-called Green Berets. Waltz, who will replace Jake Sullivan in the White House after 20 January, will not be spoken to with a set of clichés and slogans. As a professional military officer, he will demand a realistic war plan from Ukraine with clear calculations of the necessary forces and means.
It will not be possible to come to the Trump administration with an Excel list of trillions of dollars worth of priority equipment and tell them in a PDF presentation that this equipment is needed to equip 14 new brigades.
Pragmatic Republicans with military education and experience will demand a detailed military justification for Ukraine's requests for weapons, explaining what military goals Ukraine plans to achieve with these means.
Minister Umerov, in our opinion, is not capable of preparing such a justification and presenting it to the American side in a quality manner. This is also because the Ministry of Defence still does not have a single person responsible for international cooperation and military diplomacy.
In October, Oleksandr Balanutsa, who had not even worked for four months, was dismissed from his position as Umerov's deputy in charge of international relations. He was dismissed without any explanation or performance evaluation. He was replaced by former Deputy Minister of Strategic Industries Serhii Boiev, who again needed time to understand the work of the ministry, all the intricacies of military diplomacy, form a team, etc.
This turnover of personnel is completely disorienting for all our international partners, for whom it is important to have one responsible professional person in the Ministry of Defence through whom they can solve the current tasks of transferring weapons and technologies to us on a daily basis at the tactical level.
But whatever the name of Umerov's deputy in charge of international cooperation, it seems that the minister will not allow him to build the necessary control over the area.
As we mentioned earlier, for more than a year now, the ministry's international cooperation has been de facto managed by the minister's adviser, Diana Davitian, a close relative of Zaporizhzhia businessman Vemir Davitian, and freelance advisers have been making important foreign visits. In fact, international affairs is perhaps the only area of the Ministry of Defence in which Umerov is proactively and personally involved.
A separate topic is the lack of comprehensive state policies on the part of the Ministry of Defence in the field of military technology development during the largest technological war in human history.
The ministry is reluctant to purchase technology, and in the third year of the full-scale invasion, it began to buy even a tactical-level support drone, the "Mavic". However, volunteers confirm that they still receive thousands of requests from the frontline, which means they need more, especially in winter, drones with thermal cameras.
However, procurement has begun, and to be fair, this is a real achievement compared to the previous team. After all, Minister Reznikov categorically refused to purchase one of the key UAVs for the frontline. And even after the first year of the full-scale invasion, he did not understand that it was largely this UAV that kept people on the front line alive, so he did not take it seriously. Of course, the work of the DPA has had a positive impact on this remarkable progress.
But the ministry must also formulate policies, carry out certain forecasting and planning. What military technologies will be relevant in a year or at least in the summer of 2025? What is worth investing state resources in now? How else can we simplify the rules of the game, help manufacturers at all stages of logistics, production, contracting and supply to the frontline? At present, there is no systematic work in these areas, and the Ministry is still a passive buyer without any vision for several steps ahead.
The minister's communication itself is the subject of a separate conversation. There are already jokes and memes about "a mixture of vagueness, obscenities and shouting". In order not to overload the reader, we will quote just a few quotes from the article "Seven Questions to Minister Umerov", as all of them are still relevant.
"The minister speaks vaguely, creates a smokescreen. Not because he doesn't know how to speak. In my experience, he is a fairly intelligent person. It is rather a deliberate trick, a kind of illusionism. It is very difficult to hear specifics. It is often just a stream of incomprehensible, logically unrelated phrases. It's like talking a lot and saying nothing.
For months, subordinates do not understand what their boss is saying. And they are afraid to ask again.
The style of management is the eastern court. There is a ruler who needs to be appeased, worshipped, and given gifts - results. Today he has one set of demands, tomorrow he has another, because his mood changes. No one really knows what he needs. Therefore, everyone acts at their own discretion, hoping that this is exactly what they will be praised for at the meeting. But priorities can change in a day, and then everyone will have to run in a different direction.
If the manager is in a bad mood, he just shouts and threatens to fire you without properly explaining what's wrong."
Bottom line.
This article will not contain recommendations on how to resolve the next batch of problems. There is no point in doing so. The conclusions that follow from this article are obvious. The Ministry of Defence today is more of a brake than an engine. Instead of a strong team capable of performing strategic tasks, we see a chaotic structure where key functions are duplicated, decisions are sabotaged, and international partners lose trust.
Systemic chaos, corruption risks and managerial failure in the Ministry of Defence during the war are not just problems, they are threats. Every day that the Ministry of Defence remains in the hands of a person who demonstrates managerial helplessness brings not victory, but disaster.
President Zelenskyy must decide whether he is willing to co-author a plan for failure or take a decisive step to put someone at the helm of the agency who can restore the trust of society and allies and implement his Victory Plan.
Daria Kaleniuk, Alona Hetmanchuk, Mariia Berlinska, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia
