What violations of the SES tender conditions have other suppliers of firefighting equipment found?
In a period of catastrophic shortage of money in Ukraine's budget, when millions of people donate to the military every day, there are still those who are not deterred from stealing hundreds of millions of hryvnias from the state treasury. Corruption in government agencies during the most brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation is demotivating, but it must continue to be revealed, written about, and spoken about in order to stop anyone who decides to steal from their country in such a difficult time.
And this is exactly that story. At least a quarter of a billion hryvnias were stolen by top officials of the State Emergency Service in 2023 in collusion with a private company. And there is a high probability that this year the SES will continue to implement its scheme to purchase fire ladders at almost twice the price.
How Andriy Zalisky's Promenergoobladenie LLC started receiving almost all government orders from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine
As soon as Serhiy Kruk, the head of the State Emergency Service in Rivne region, known for owning a large amount of real estate that does not correspond to his income, was appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers on February 16, 2022, to the post of head of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, business immediately took off for his fellow countryman, a native of Rivne, Andriy Zalisky, founder and director of Promenergoobladennya LLC, which imports and trades in firefighting equipment. While in 2018-2021 the company's maximum revenue reached UAH 60 million, in 2022 there was a sharp jump to UAH 453 million.
It is easy to explain such a stunning growth of business in the period of full-scale war - Promenergoobladnanni LLC with the appointment of Serhiy Kruk became the "favorite" of the State Emergency Service, to which the rescuers began to give almost all of their state orders. In 2022, Zalisky's company supplied fire axes and fire belts, three Magirus Wolf R1 tactical robots for a total of UAH 32.5 million, and 20 fire extinguishing systems for another UAH 66 million to the State Emergency Service.
In the fall of 2022, 17 regional offices of the State Emergency Service announced the purchase of WJFE 300 SYSTEM fire extinguishing systems — as a copy of all 17 tenders with an expected product value of 3 million 320 thousand UAH, Promenergoobladnannia LLP won with a proposed price of exactly 3 million 320 thousand UAH.
Actually, except for Zalisky's company, no one else took part in the tenders. And such success could not be just a lucky coincidence. After all, in 2023, history repeated itself — only Promenergoobladnannia LLC submitted and won in all tenders of the State Emergency Service throughout the country, as a result of which it made an almost absolute record, receiving almost 1 billion UAH from the State Emergency Service for contracts.
Thanks to Resolution No. 1178 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated October 12, 2022 on the peculiarities of procurement during martial law, tenders can be held today without auctions: one participant applied and won. And in order for only one required participant to submit, you just need to write the tender documentation and technical specifications of the purchased product in such a way that only one of the same required participant could supply it.
An analysis of the procurement of a large batch of fire truck ladders by the State Emergency Service in 2023 suggests that this is exactly what the service's management did. According to the online procurement system Prozorro, in total, the regional departments of the State Emergency Service conducted 17 tenders and purchased 19 fire truck ladders with combined movements - mostly with a lifting height of up to 35 meters, and a few - up to 45 meters.
As in the case of the fire extinguishing systems, all the tenders are identical word for word, despite the fact that they were carried out by 17 different customers. That is, they were prepared by the central apparatus of the State Emergency Service and "went down" to the regional offices. In the technical, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the subject of procurement, the customers prescribed a number of conditions that must be met by the fire truck ladders offered by the tender participants.
For example, cars must have a 4x2 chassis wheel formula, the total weight of the truck ladder must not exceed 16 tons, height - 3.3 meters, length - 11 meters. Based on the combination of all the described indicators, it turned out that only one model on the market would be suitable - it is the M32L-AS fire truck ladder manufactured by the German concern Magirus GmbH. And the official dealer of the equipment of this German company in Ukraine is Andrii Zaliskyi LLC "Promenergoobladnannia". Coincidence?
The technical characteristics of the fire truck ladder produced by the German company Magirus exactly coincide with the characteristics of the truck ladders specified in the tender documentation
What violations in the conditions of tenders of the State Emergency Service were found by other suppliers of special fire equipment?
It is expected that other suppliers of special fire equipment in Ukraine, of which there are quite a few, have paid attention to this. In particular, in a number of tenders, LLC "Patron Demining Scientific and Production Company" stated its demands for the elimination of violations of the tender. In them, the company indicated that "the specified technical requirements can be met only by a specially developed small fire truck ladder, which is offered on the market by a limited number of manufacturers", and the terms of the tender do not allow either to order the manufacture of such machines, or even to have time to deliver already manufactured ones due to border, which significantly limits competition and the opportunity to participate in the tender for other companies with fire truck ladders of other models and with other characteristics.
"Patron Demining" sells Korean KORAL-35UV machines with a 6x2 chassis wheel formula, height 3.98 meters, length 11.95 meters and weight 21.5 tons. The company offered to revise the requirements for the characteristics of the truck ladders in order to allow other participants to apply for tenders, but in all cases, all regional offices of the State Emergency Service refused it.
Nevertheless, the company still managed to cancel several tenders. During the purchase of a fire truck ladder, Patron Demining, after receiving a refusal from the customer to change the characteristics of the machine, applied to the Antimonopoly Committee with these requirements.
In its complaint, the company directly stated that the Odessa Department of Emergency Situations "unreasonably established technical specifications, which is nothing more than the artificial creation of conditions "for a specific manufacturer — Magirus GmbH." And what is remarkable, the AMCU commission agreed with the applicant.
"The customer did not justify the need to establish the above requirements (for equipment) in the documentation, did not prove and did not documentally confirm the presence of products of at least two manufacturers that meet the conditions of the documentation," says the decision of the AMKU Commission No. 11701 dated July 31, 2023, which adopted to oblige the Odesa Department of the State Emergency Service to change the technical requirements for the fire truck ladder that is being purchased.
What did the Odessa rescuers do? They made changes to the tender documentation, but immediately after that they canceled the tender - now there is a big chance that it is not the company that will win, but a completely different company. The same story happened with the tender of the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service in the Ternopil region.
In other cases, in tenders with the same discriminatory conditions without rivals, the right company - LLC "Promenergoobladnannia" won. According to the results of 17 tenders, the units of the State Emergency Service bought 19 fire truck ladders from Promenergoobladnannia LLC and paid 878 million 480 thousand hryvnias for them. One car ladder with a lift of up to 35 meters cost the budget 44 million 190 thousand UAH, with a lift of up to 45 meters — 48 million 480 thousand UAH.
Of course, someone made a lot of money from this big contract. Otherwise, why then go through all this, take risks, come across complaints to AMCU and attract attention? This is confirmed by two facts.
By how much is the price of the equipment that the State Emergency Service purchased from the company of Andriy Zalisky is overstated
Firstly, immediately after the regional offices of the State Emergency Service conducted their tenders, but had not yet concluded contracts with Promenergoobladnannia LLC, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine conducted its internal audit, the report of which is at the disposal of Osint Global. In it, the ministerial auditors indicated that in the spring of 2023, the head of the Department of Material and Technical Support and Logistics of the State Emergency Service, Kostyantyn Ivlev, collected information from market participants about the availability, availability, and prices of fire truck ladders. 6 companies submitted their offers to Ivlev, among which the most profitable was the offer of Trans-Service-KTT LLC, which offered to supply Bronto Skylift F32RLX machines at a price of UAH 31 million 800 thousand with a ladder up to 35 meters high and at a price of UAH 37 million 142 thousand — for car ladders with a lift of up to 45 meters.
"Thus, according to the results of the study of the technical characteristics of the proposed special vehicles, the offer of Trans-Service-KTT LLC is the most economically and technically advantageous," the auditors of the Ministry of Internal Affairs indicated.
At the end, the auditors summarized: the conclusion of contracts with the company of Andriy Zalisky will lead to an unjustified waste of budget funds in the total amount of 225 million 302 thousand hryvnias. That is, 25% of the amount that the State Emergency Service overpaid LLC "Promenergoobladnannia" as a result, having concluded contracts with it, despite the warning of the audit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And what could have been spent on the purchase of 7 more fire truck ladders to rescue people in emergency situations. Or for 1,100 well-equipped Mavic drones, which are constantly in short supply at the front.
Secondly, in order to understand that the price of car ladders from the Zalisky company was overstated and to what extent, you can analyze the price at which the same ladders are sold by their manufacturer, the German concern Magirus GmbH. We took for comparison the model of their M32L truck ladder with a lift of up to 35 meters. We will remind you that in August 2023 "Promenergoobladnannia" LLC sold them to the State Emergency Service at a price of 44 million 190 thousand hryvnias, which at the exchange rate of the euro at that time amounted to 1 million 77 thousand euros.
So, according to the European e-procurement portal, in 2023 the Magirus concern concluded 5 contracts for the supply of 38 M32L mobile ladders to Germany, France and Italy. In September 2023, the company sold its cars to the Department of Public Order and Civil Security in Rome at a price of 566,365 euros each, and to the fire and rescue service of the French city of Annecy in July 2023 at a price of 577,350 euros. That is, in fact, twice as cheap.
Obviously, it is necessary to take into account the costs of the importer and customs costs. But they can't get by for the price of one more such fire truck ladder!
Oleg Mandzyuk, head of the Department of Security and Anti-corruption of the State Emergency Service, warned the head of the State Emergency Service Serhiy Kruk in his report back in June 2023 that the employees of the State Emergency Service were going to significantly overpay for the purchase of fire truck ladders. In it, he stated that his administration received information that unidentified employees of the State Emergency Service entered into a conspiracy with representatives of Promenergoobladnanni LLC, who were promised to help them win during public procurement.
"In informal conversations, the employees of Promenergoobladnannia LLC expressed confidence that the technical conditions of tenders for an estimated amount of more than UAH 1 billion will be deliberately made at the State Emergency Service for the company," Oleg Mandzyuk wrote to Serhiy Kruk on June 12, a month before the regional offices of the State Emergency Service started holding tenders.
After receiving this document and the audit report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, what should a person do who is not personally interested in his department purchasing 19 fire truck ladders at an inflated or double price? Intervene, prevent? Considering the fact that this did not happen and the scheme was implemented, radically opposite conclusions are suggested.
How the leadership of the State Emergency Service lobbied for the purchase of defective ladders at inflated prices from a manufacturer that did not exit the Russian market
The fact that this scheme was implemented personally by Serhiy Kruk is also confirmed by our sources in the State Emergency Service, who wished to remain unnamed. According to them, the story is even more interesting, since the representatives of the German concern Magirus could have directly participated in the conspiracy regarding the supply of DSNS.
According to sources, Oleksandr Vaskovskyi, the head of the department of special equipment and special equipment of the Department of Logistics of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, on behalf of Kruk, traveled to Germany several times in 2023 to meet with Wilhelm Titke, the sales manager of the Magirus company, who is responsible for the Eastern Europe region. "We have very big questions about these truck ladders, because there is an assumption that we bought from the Germans exactly those truck ladders that were returned to them as defective. The fact is that in 2022, Magirus had a scandal: they sold a batch of defective truck ladders to European customers, some of them began to break in operation - imagine an "arrow" that is brought to a building and breaks in half. In the end, this whole batch was returned to them. We here were well aware of this story. That is why we were very surprised when we saw that after this scandal, ours are buying exactly these German truck ladders, exactly from this factory. No matter how wrong they were from the defective batch," said an employee of the State Emergency Service.
Thus, it is not excluded that the scheme of supplying German truck ladders to the regional administration of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine may have been initially initiated by the German concern Magirus GmbH, which was looking for a place to sell the batch of defective products returned by the Europeans. Where but to Ukraine with its corrupt officials?
By the way, the company Magirus GmbH has still not left the Russian market two years after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, and continues to have its official representative office in Moscow at the address Semenivska ploshcha, 1A, 18th floor and its official website, on which the company congratulates Russian rescuers on Fire Protection Day. And it is the sale of Magirus products in the Russian Federation that Wilhelm Titke is engaged in, as indicated in his Linkedin profile.
Surprisingly, as of the beginning of 2023, when the State Emergency Service began the process of preparing for fraud with tenders under Promenergoobladnannia LLC, Serhiy Kruk and his subordinates were already under the scrutiny of the police and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine for several other cases. But this did not stop them.
According to the publication "Chetverta vlada", in 2022 Serhii Kruk already tried to "spill" almost UAH 1.5 billion of the State Emergency Service budget for the purchase of equipment under the same fictitious tenders for one of his participants. As the detectives established, a certain businessman entered into a conspiracy with the service management, promising to supply equipment through companies controlled by him at prices inflated by 25-30% with a reward to officials in the amount of 10% of the deal.
"The members of the organized group formed commercial offers with artificially inflated prices by 25-30%, which created conditions for further withdrawal of budget funds and causing grave consequences for the state," says the decision of the High Anti-Corruption Court, which also states that in the scheme, in addition to the head The above-mentioned director of the Department of Material and Technical Support and Logistics of the State Emergency Service Kostyantyn Ivlev and his deputy Oleksandr Vaskovskyi took part in the State Emergency Service.
The supply of equipment at that time was to be carried out by two companies — Techno Train LLC and, strangely enough, the above-mentioned NPK Patron Demining LLC. In January 2023, NABU searched the office of the head of the State Emergency Service and seized two of Serhii Kruk's phones. In them, detectives discovered Kruk's deleted correspondence in the WhatsApp messenger, in which he exchanged with colleagues photocopies of documents with lists of equipment from these suppliers: they described the supply of 17 pieces of equipment from Techno Train LLC for the total amount of UAH 162,264,571. In another photocopy, the sum of 226 million 262 thousand hryvnias was indicated for "NPK "Patron Demining" LLC.
Probably, after the NABU detectives foiled the scheme, the cooperation of the head of the State Emergency Service Kruk with the company "Patron Demining" stopped, and a year later, during the purchase of truck ladders, she appeared not in the role of "favorite", but behind the wheel, because of which she tried in every way to prevent the holding of tenders.
NABU's investigation into this criminal proceeding is still ongoing. How does the investigation continue in the criminal case opened by the Pechersk Department of the Kyiv Police on March 24, 2023, in connection with the seizure of more than UAH 3 million by State Emergency Service officials during the purchase of three Magirus Wolf R1 tactical robots for a total of UAH 32.5 million from the same "Promenergoobladnannya"? But that's not all: from the purchase of fire axes and belts in April 2023, law enforcement officers also opened criminal proceedings for embezzlement of budget funds. The investigation believes that the management of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the city of Kyiv abused their official position when determining the winner of this procurement was "Promenergoobladnannia" LLC and acted in favor of the latter in order to obtain an illegal benefit for themselves.
Facing. For almost every small and large tender of the State Emergency Service over the past two years, while Serhii Kruk was in charge of the service, the police and NABU opened proceedings, seeing in the deals a conspiracy with Andrii Zalisky. By the way, he has already been searched a number of times — in a house in the village of Vyshenki near Kyiv, in a house in Kyiv itself at 3 Sytnyakivska Street, in apartments at 36-a Biloruska Street and 19-a Dniprovska Naberezhna Street, as well as in office of "Promenergoobladnannia" LLC in Kyiv at 67 Beresteyskyi Avenue, building G, offices 314-313.
According to our information, Oleksandr Vaskovskyi, who, considering everything, acted as Serhii Kruk's confidant in most of the schemes, is on the run — searches were also conducted at his home and workplace. Serhii Kruk himself, as is known, was dismissed by the Cabinet of Ministers from the post of head of the State Emergency Service on August 25, 2023, but after that he arranged to work at Energoatom - after all, he is a "valuable" employee.
And, despite open criminal proceedings, despite searches and dismissals, Serhii Kruk's case continues to live in the State Emergency Service. According to our sources, after his resignation from his post, Kruk succeeded in appointing his man Andriy Danyk as deputy head of the State Emergency Service, whose task is to continue ensuring "fruitful cooperation" with Promenergoobladnannia LLC already this year.
Already today, Danyk instructed the Department of Material and Technical Support of the State Emergency Service to prepare specifications and tender documentation for the purchase of fire truck ladders for approximately 2 billion hryvnias. According to the procurement plan of the State Emergency Service for 2024, a copy of which was obtained by Osint Global, rescuers intend to purchase another 38 fire truck ladders this year. And in the "estimated amount" column, prices of UAH 44-48 million are already set, i.e. they are again overstated, almost twice as much as the market prices.