A court has ordered the arrest of former Defense Ministry official Oleksandr Liyev.

The Oktyabrsky Court in Poltava has placed a former official of the Ministry of Defense, Oleksandr Liyev, under preventive detention until March 14, with the option of posting bail exceeding 9 million UAH. The ex-official is suspected of misappropriating state funds during the procurement of machine guns.

This was reported by Suspilne Poltava.

The suspect's lawyers plan to file an appeal. He claims he has no intention of hiding from the investigation, as he has attended every hearing. The court sessions in the case have been postponed twice due to the prosecutor's absence.

“In March 2022, machine guns were purchased and paid for in March 2022. I was not working in the department at that time. They arrived in May, and I still wasn’t working in the department then. I was appointed head of the department in August. As soon as the supplier delivered them, it coincided with my time in the department when they needed to be accepted. The military unit, where the armaments specialists work, checks the quality and completeness, fills out the relevant form, and based on this form, signed by all those military personnel, I signed the acceptance act,” Liyev explained.

Recall that on January 14, the State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) handed Oleksandr Liyev a notice of suspicion. According to law enforcement, due to fraud during the procurement of machine guns, instead of 400 units, the military received 200 cheaper alternatives. The weapons could not fire continuously and malfunctioned after the first shots due to damage to parts and mechanisms. The state budget lost 193 million UAH.

In addition, Liyev is suspected of embezzling 1.5 billion UAH for the procurement of ammunition for the army. In 2023, journalists discovered that the company “Lviv Arsenal” received 1.4 billion UAH from the Ministry of Defense for the supply of a large batch of 120 mm and 82 mm mines. The last batches of ammunition were supposed to arrive by the end of February 2023, but as of July 2023, the Ministry of Defense had not received any mines.