In 2022, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine signed a number of contracts with the Polish company Alfa for the supply of various types of weapons and ammunition, but the company did not fulfill its obligations and, as of 2023, owed the Ministry of Defense more than 3.5 billion hryvnias.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, since April 2022, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has entered into several agreements with the Polish company Alfa.
The Polish company undertook to supply the MOU with body armor and helmets, but did not do it on time and did not fulfill the order by 100%.
At the same time, the Ministry of Defense concluded a number of unfavorable agreements with Alfa, and as of the beginning of 2023, under various contracts, this company had debts to the Ministry of Defense for more than three and a half billion hryvnias.
The Polish company received and withdrew billions of hryvnias from Ukraine. But she could not realize the supply of paid weapons.
The UE is aware of at least 7 agreements that the MOU has entered into directly with Alfa. Some of them are disputed in international arbitration.
First deal
MOU signed the first contract with Alfa on April 11, 2022. It was a contract for the supply of 20,000 ballistic helmets, 20,000 body armor and 40,000 armor plates for them. The transaction amount is 24.5 million euros with 100% prepayment.
Alfa, albeit with a delay, was able to supply all body armor and plates. But out of the 16,000 helmets she brought, 11,000 were immediately returned as unusable, and another 5,000 remained in the warehouse, not accepted for balance by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Second wave of agreements
On April 22, 2022, three agreements were signed with Alfa for the amount of about UAH 3.3 billion (almost 64.4 million euros). For each of them, the Polish company received a 50% advance payment.
It was about the supply of several Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, 122-mm ammunition for the D-30 howitzer and 122-mm rockets for the Grad.
As far as UP knows, only a small number of contracted weapons came. Only a tenth of the supplies to the D-30 arrived very late, the rockets to the Grad – a third, and the Carnations, although they all arrived, but in such a condition that it does not exactly correspond to the technical class stated in the agreement, and the MOU is now trying extort compensation from the supplier.
As of the beginning of 2023, under three April 2022 agreements, Alfa had almost UAH 1.7 billion of receivables to the Ministry of Defense.
Third Wave of Deals
On June 13, 2022, knowing that the company was violating previous contracts, the Ministry of Defense signed three more contracts worth about UAH 2.6 billion. The company received half of this amount as an advance payment.
All three agreements were probably signed by the MOU by the head of the military-technical policy department, Vladislav Shostak, who will be removed from his post a week later, in June 2022.
This time the contracts provided for the supply of:
- 120-mm mines (more than 11 million euros in advance);
- 152-mm rounds for the Hyacinth howitzer (18 million euros in advance);
- 152-mm rounds for the Dana self-propelled guns (13 million euros in advance).
Shots for “Hyacinth” came about 40%; 120 mm mines delivered less than 1% of the contract; no shots were fired at Dana at all.
Now the MOU is trying to return 27 million euros of the advance payment and recover almost 13 million euros more in fines for disrupted deliveries.
Eighth transaction (no prepayment)
Despite supply disruptions, on October 25, 2022, the Ministry of Defense again orders another 20,000 helmets and 50,000 bulletproof vests from Alfa for the amount of almost 50 million euros. This time there was no prepayment.
The helmets never arrived in Ukraine, and half of the delivered body armor did not pass ballistic tests.
Deal through Ukrainian company “Progress”
On April 27, 2022, the Ministry of Defense signed three contracts with the state special importer of weapons – the Progress company, which was supposed to supply similar types of ammunition as the Polish company.
The sum of three agreements with the state-owned company reached more than 17 billion hryvnias.
At the same time, Bulgarian shots for the D-30, D-20 and rockets for the Grads, according to the UP, Progress had to buy through the same Polish company Alfa.
As far as Ukrayinska Pravda knows, deals with the Poles at Progress were overseen by Deputy Director and former Deputy Minister of Defense Oleksandr Mironyuk, known for a search in a criminal case on the purchase of low-quality body armor, during which millions of different currencies were found in Mironyuk’s sofa.
At the same time, the price of shells through a Ukrainian intermediary was 57% higher than the price under the Ukrainian contract.
The Polish company was supposed to supply 122-mm rounds with a full charge to the D-30/2S1 howitzers for 760 euros, and Progress the same shots for 1195 euros. Surcharge of 435 euros per shell.
The Polish contractor performed this contract for Progress much more efficiently than its own for the supply of the same shells, but 57% cheaper: the Alfa contract was completed by 10%, while the Progress contract was completed with delays, but about 80%.
But even despite the cheating under this agreement, Progress at the beginning of 2023 had more than 200 million hryvnias of deterred Ministry of Defense.
The Polish “Alfa” was founded as a limited liability company back in 2005.
The company is engaged in the trade of various kinds of products, in particular military ones. In 2020, the company showed 1.23 million zlotys (a little more than 300 thousand euros) in profit, in 2021 Alfa earned 7.4 million zlotys (about 1.8 million euros).
Alfa has not yet filed financial statements for 2022, when the company signed contracts for hundreds of millions in Ukraine.
On the contrary, in the first half of 2023, the company has already changed data about itself in the registers 4 times, which may be a way to delay filing reports.
