Monopoly - instead of prison sentence: How Hlyniana became one of Ministry of Defence’s largest contractors
On April 15, 2025, the NABU announced that it was seeking businessman Tetiana Hlyniana in connection with a case involving the embezzlement of funds allocated for food supplies to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This refers to the notorious "eggs at 17".
A year on, Hlynyana continues to live a quiet life in Croatia, whilst her company, "Grand Consult", is one of the Defence Procurement Agency’s largest contractors, according to the latest quarterly figures.
How is it that the woman at the centre of the 17-hryvnia-per-egg scandal is not only going unpunished but is actually increasing her profits?
January 2023. Yurii Nikolov writes a scathing article for ZN.UA, revealing that the Ministry of Defence is planning to buy eggs from one of its suppliers at 17 hryvnias, when everyone else is buying them in the supermarket for 7–8. The public is outraged. The Ministry is forced to take action. It establishes a public anti-corruption council to oversee procurement and returns tenders for ‘non-lethal’ goods to Prozorro. By the end of the year, the Ministry launches two agencies tasked with purchasing goods for the military in place of corrupt officials.
Procurement rules are changing; suppliers are given a price ceiling for goods, and then a floor, so they cannot manipulate the catalogue to their advantage.
But this does not mean that the key players in this market are changing.
Tetiana Hlyniana has rebranded her company and now supplies food to the military through the firm ‘Mit Prom’.
In the summer of 2024, the BES carried out searches and the whole country saw the boot of Hlyniana’s firm’s employees, from which over €4.7 million in unaccounted cash was seized from managers of companies in Hlyniana’s network.
The case files refer to tax evasion and fictitious schemes involving the companies "ZIVIS UA" LLC (formerly known as "VISIT" LLC), LLC "ACTIVE COMPANY", LLC "GRAND CONSULT", LLC "OK LAND FOOD", and LLC "TERRA BM" (formerly LLC "PREMIUM COMPANY").
Currently, the register of court decisions contains only one ruling in this case regarding the refusal to freeze funds. Rumours suggest that the company’s owner has managed to resolve the matter to her advantage.
In April last year, Hlyniana was served with a notice of suspicion by NABU. According to the investigation, the implementation of this scheme resulted in two supplier companies illegally receiving over 733 million hryvnias from the budget between August and December 2022. Subsequently, part of these funds was paid out under the guise of dividends and used to provide repayable financial assistance to affiliated companies. The investigation believes that the company owner could have used these funds to purchase hotels in the Republic of Croatia and other property abroad.
However, at the time the charges were announced, almost 2.5 years after the scandal broke, Hlyniana was already living in Croatia and continues to watch the law enforcement agencies calmly from the shores of the Adriatic.
There was another criminal case – concerning the fact that Hlyniana’s companies, ‘Active Company’ and ‘Grand Consult’, set up a scheme involving procurement officers, , signing fictitious delivery notes for goods, failing to deliver the goods to the military, and splitting the profits.
Do you think anything happened to the head of Hlyniana’s firms after that, for example? No, absolutely not.
The companies that shamelessly profited off the military continue to supply food to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And they don’t just continue.
According to the results of monitoring the latest tenders on the biProzorro system, it is clear that Hlyniana’s company is among the top three largest suppliers to the Ministry of Defence based on the results of the first quarter.
Top 3 by number of lots:
- LLC "GRAND CONSULT" — 36 lots, worth ~1.77 billion UAH;
- Private Enterprise "NVF TAKHO", "EUROPA ARM SPORT" LLC, DEFENSE GROUP s.r.o. — 32 lots each;
- JSC "UKRNAFTA" — 27 lots, but the largest amount won: ~3.02 billion UAH.
Top by procurement value:
- JSC "UKRNAFTA" — 3.02 billion UAH (27 lots, 5 won);
- LLC "GRAND CONSULT" — 1.77 billion UAH (36 lots — the most active participant);
- "UT COMPANY" LLC — 840 million UAH from just 7 lots.
Now let’s look at the details
"Grand Consult" LLC secured its largest contract, worth one billion, on 18 March, when it won the tender to supply food to the Armed Forces in the Chernihiv region (price per set — 100.95 UAH excluding VAT).
Out of 8 participants, "Grand Consult" submitted the second-highest bid, 10 million higher than "Buskyi Canning Plant". However, the winner subsequently submitted incorrect documents, with technical errors that appear more like collusion.
"The participant, 'BUSKYI CANNING PLANT' LLC, submitted a revised price proposal following the auction results in accordance with the form set out in ANNEX No. 2 to the Notice. However, the Participant provided a price per set inclusive of VAT which does not comply with accounting standards or the correct recording of goods prices in accounting systems, as the calculation of the price per set inclusive of VAT has more than TWO decimal places and amounts to 120.036 UAH. Furthermore, the stated amount excluding VAT does not correspond to the product of the quantities and the unit price of the goods excluding VAT," states the DPA’s rejection protocol.
"Furthermore, the Participant has breached the terms for the provision of the priced Food Catalogue, namely:
- the cost of the priced Food Catalogue does not equal the cost of the food set in accordance with the updated price proposal;
- the cost of the food package is incorrectly stated in the ‘incl. VAT’ section;
- the calorie requirements for the following items have not been met: "11013 Fresh seasonal broccoli" is listed as "22 kcal", "11029 Canned cucumbers" – "15 kcal", "11054 Canned sorrel" – "11 kcal". In view of the above, the participant, 'BUSKYI CANNING PLANT' LLC, has breached the terms of the Tender Notice and has refused to enter into a contract", the document states.
As is known, since February, the Buskyi Canning Plant has been implicated in a SBI probe into the illegal enrichment of procurement official of one of the units in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Moreover, there is clearly not just one incident, but several.
Therefore, it is quite likely that the tender was awarded to another participant by mutual agreement. And that participant may well end up as a subcontractor.
Hlyniana’s company won another contract after the DPA found irregularities in the documents of the company ‘Adelin’.
Furthermore, Hlyniana’s company could have become a monopoly supplier of dry rations. It won the tender for 17 lots. For some of the lots, the company’s bid was rejected because it failed to provide proof that the company was not bankrupt. Interestingly, in most of these lots, Hlyniana's company had no competitors. Consequently, the tenders were deemed unsuccessful. This means that this quantity of rations will be put out to tender again.
Even without this, Hlyniana has secured a large share of this market.
Incidentally, a year ago, suppliers of dry rations suddenly began refusing to supply. Some under the pretext that the production line had stopped, others under different pretexts. And then, at one meeting, the phrase was uttered: "Hlyniana is already standing at the starting line, ready to step in to supply dry rations." Well, she has already stepped in.
The story involving Hlyniana and Busk Canning is by no means the only instance where a company with a criminal record has been contracted again.
On Thursday, "Nashi Hroshi" reported that on 8 April, following a tender, the "Defence Procurement Agency" ordered protective ballistic goggles worth 8 million hryvnias from "TS Trade Ukraine" LLC.
The problem with this deal is that on 21 August 2025, officers from the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI), with operational assistance from the SSU, served notices of suspicion to officials at the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and the director of the supplier company that had supplied substandard ballistic goggles.
The case concerned "TS Trade Ukraine" LLC and tender UA-2024-08-22-007683-a.
According to an official statement by the SBI, in September 2024, one of the Ministry of Defence’s state-owned enterprises signed a contract for the supply of 18,000 sets of ballistic goggles. The delivery was made, but the products did not meet the stated protective specifications and did not provide adequate protection against shrapnel.
The violations were confirmed by the results of tests conducted by the Research Centre for Testing and Certification of Personal Protective Equipment at the National Defence University of Ukraine.
Charges have been brought under the following articles: Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code (misappropriation of property on a particularly large scale during wartime) — against the supplier’s director. Part 4 of Article 425 of the Criminal Code (official negligence) — against a former employee of the Central Quality Control Department of the Ministry of Defence, who failed to perform his supervisory duties.
This refers to the former head of the Central Quality Control Department, Ihor Leshchenko. He has been arrested with bail set at 12 million.
According to sources at Censor.NET, charges were also due to be brought against Viktoria Vynohradova of the "State Logistics Operator" SE, who oversaw this area until July 2025. However, Vynohradova, who later became a central figure in the story of the Mindich’s bulletproof vests, managed to avoid this bitter fate at the time.
But the question remains: does the Ukrainian state intend, through any of its bodies (the Ministry of Defence, NABU, SBI, SSU, or DPA), to protect its interests from such suppliers? Or does this feeding trough, at the expense of the lives and health of the military, suit everyone just fine?
Tetiana Nikolaienko, Censor.NET
