Alexander Lev. Corrupt official led the procurement of the Ministry of Defense
It depends on Alexander Liyev who, for how much and what kind of weapons and military equipment Ukraine buys, writes ZN.
A former Yanukovych-era Crimean minister with a rather pro-Russian and corrupt reputation is responsible for the purchase of defense equipment in Ukraine, says in his blog Chairman of the Board of the Anti-Corruption Action Center Vitaly Shabunin.
Since the summer of 2022, Oleksandr Liev has been acting head of the department for military-technical policy, development of weapons and military equipment of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. It is he who determines from whom, for how much and what kind of weapons and military equipment the state of Ukraine buys at the expense of Ukrainian taxpayers.
Despite public statements by Minister of Defense Aleksey Reznikov that weapons are purchased by the Defense Procurement Agency according to NATO standards, the Liev Department concludes multibillion-dollar contracts.
Based on open data and materials of journalistic investigations, Shabunin writes that Alexander Liev is a native of the city of Ukhta of the Komi Republic of the Russian Federation. During the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, he was the Minister of Resorts and Tourism of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and in this post he became involved in a scandal when in 2013 he received the Order of St. Anna of the Third Degree from the Head of the Russian Imperial House, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna. Then the Minister of the Ukrainian Crimeacommented on the award of the Russian “Empress” with the words “I serve the Fatherland!”but after a flurry of criticism deleted the post.
At the beginning of the occupation of Crimea on March 5, 2014 Alexander Liev in an interview with Hromadsky urged “hear Crimea” and “legalize the referendum” on its status. At the same time, he hinted that he was ready to work in Aksenov’s government, but stated that he “does not meet the criteria that are becoming relevant in this revolutionary time,” and promised to help the minister.
Later, the ex-minister left the peninsula, during his career where he distinguished himself by not very pro-Ukrainian actions.
So, in 2006, Alexander Liev blocked the entry of Ukrainian military sailors into the territory of Ukrainian lighthouses, which were seized by Russian troops, and then was a member of the “shadow government” of Crimea, which Russia even recognized.
Also, a trail of corruption stories stretches behind Liyev from Crimea. Liev was brought into politics by the former head of the Krasnoperekopsky City Council, Sergei Kunitsyn, who had close ties with Dmitry Firtash. In particular, in 2009, when Kunitsyn took the post of head of the Sevastopol State Administration, Liev was appointed head of the Antimonopoly Committee. The period of Kunitsyn’s “governorship” in Sevastopol was remembered for scams around land plots and other property of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which, according to the servitude scheme, were given for commercial development.
“In 2010, after the resignation of Kunitsyn, Alexander Liev got along with the “Donetsk” – the government of the ARC of Vasily Dzharty – and received the post of deputy minister of resorts and tourism, headed by the government of Mogilev. It was the proximity to the “Donetsk” that could be the main reason why Liev was not taken to the “Aksenov government”, which was formed mainly from the “Crimean”, very offended by Yanukovych, Dzharty and Mogilev persons”, Shabunin points out a possible reason why a supporter of the secession of Crimea ended up in Ukraine.
After the withdrawal of Crimea, Alexander Liev moved to Kyiv and in 2014 got a job in senior positions at the National Public Television and Radio Company, where he also attached his relatives. However, after discovering this fact, he resigned in 2019.
In parallel, from February 2015 to April 2016, Liev was an adviser to the Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine Oleksiy Pavlenko, where, according to media reports, he actually headed the patronage service of the minister and was responsible for the procedure for competitions for the heads of all state-owned enterprises of the Ministry of Agriculture.
In particular, in February 2016, the ex-head of Artemsoli, Denis Fomenko, in an interview with Ekonomicheskaya Pravda, accused Minister Pavlenko of using “watchers” to download money from state-owned enterprises, and named Liev among the “curators”. Alexander Liev himself then denied the accusations …
According to Liev’s declaration for 2016, since April 2014, he has been using a house near Kyiv in the village of Ivankovichi, Vasilkovsky district, with an area of 539 sq. m., and also had 345 thousand dollars in cash, the origin of which is difficult to determine.
In 2017, the Liev family began to actively buy real estate in Kyiv. In particular, his wife Tatiana took over a three-room apartment with an area of 201.4 square meters in the center of Kyiv on Sichovykh Streltsy Street, and she acquired another one, with an area of 38.7 square meters, already at the beginning of 2019.
His wife, Tatiana Lieva, is the beneficial owner of Zruchno LLC. The company does not have significant turnover in 2020-2021, however, it received minor state tenders for the services of posting text information, graphic elements, images on the Zruchno.Travel web portal.
“It is not known what Liev was doing between 2019 and 2021, but according to media reports, in January 2022, Liev somehow miraculously got a job at the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. All the above facts about the frankly pro-Russian and corrupt past of Alexander Liev are in the public domain, but despite this, he has been the main person responsible for arms purchases for more than six months“, – said Shabunin.
Recall that earlier ZN.UA published an investigation into the procurement of food for the army by the Ministry of Defense. The article states that the ministry signed an agreement for 13 billion with a company with an authorized capital of a thousand hryvnias. That is, during the war, the Ministry of Defense entered into an agreement with a firm – a “gasket”.
After a few statements about the “information attack”, Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov finally announced plans to create a new, “more flexible” power supply system for the Armed Forces of Ukraine against the backdrop of an investigation into corrupt procurement by the Ministry of Defense. However, in practice, the Ministry of Defense decided to hide food prices in all available contracts and even invoices.
Read more about the history of procurement in the article by Yuri Nikolov “Rear rats of the Ministry of Defense during the war” saw “on food for the Armed Forces of Ukraine more than in civilian life.”
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