Before being delivered to frontline, mines were tested with small number of shots and not from all batches - media
There was no reaction from the military authorities to the supply of low-quality mines to the Armed Forces until 6 November, when journalist Yurii Butusov published a video of a batch of mines with only one explosion per ten shots.
This is stated in an article by journalist Yurii Nikolov for ZN.ua, Censor.NET reports.
Only on 18 November, the Central Department for the Supply of Weapons of the Armed Forces Logistics Command (CDSL AFU) reported "numerous technical malfunctions of mortar rounds already delivered" in various military units.
The problems include the mine not leaving the barrel, not hitting the target, and deviating from the aiming point by hundreds of metres.
During the tests, out of 17 shots, 9 mines did not reach the target within 600 metres, 7 did not explode (3 did not leave the barrel at all). Only one mine hit the target. When the mines were replaced with another type from another manufacturer, the second shot hit the 20-metre scattering ellipse, and the target was destroyed with four shots (two direct hits).
At the same time, on 19 November, the commander of one of the military units wrote an official complaint and summoned a representative of the plant to document the situation. On 20 November, the Defence Procurement Agency informed the General Staff of the situation. At the same time, Butusov posted a video of a mine that did not eject from the barrel.
"The head of the Central Department for the Supply of Weapons of the Armed Forces Logistics Command (CDSL AFU), Serhiy Panov, instructed the commanders of other military units to organise a recall campaign to replace the VOF-843B mortar rounds. As of now, 100,000 mortar rounds have been recalled, and only after the inspection of all units will the extent of the fiasco become clear," Nikolov said.
ZN.ua's sources said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are currently using up to 20,000 mines per month in a very economical manner.
Already on 21 November, the Ministry of Defence convened a large meeting on the situation with representatives of the President's Office under the leadership of interim acting Minister Ivan Havryliuk.
"The head of the military representatives' department, Yevhen Kurbet, said something about the existing acceptance procedure, and he was instructed to check more mines from 100% of the batches and generally increase the number of shots during the tests. This means that before that, mines were accepted based on testing a small number of shots and not from all batches, purely for the sake of tick marks.
A representative of the Ministry of Strategic Industries promised to replace mortar rounds from all batches supplied to the Armed Forces and noted the need to conduct "a qualitative inspection of products supplied to the Armed Forces". This means that prior to this, the control by the Ministry of Defence was at least of poor quality. But the representative of the Department of Military and Technical Policy (DMTP) of the MoD went even further and stated that there was "no quality control system before the supply of products to the Armed Forces", the journalist said.
The meeting revealed that the mines were not equipped with M-12 fuzes, but with B-429 fuzes, which are supplied to manufacturers as tolling raw materials from the Logistics Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"These non-standard B-429 detonators are triggered 'only when equipped with a second charge'. But where is the plant going to get an M-12 fuze if, after the military representative removed this risk from his last report on the plant's capability, production of M-12 fuzes has not been launched," Nikolov writes.
The reason for the mines missing their targets is problems with the powder charge.
"Powder in bags or special packaging is wound on the tail of the mine, and it is its explosion that pushes the mine out of the barrel at a certain speed, which determines the range and accuracy of the flight.
Ukraine has no domestic production of gunpowder, only imported gunpowder. It turned out that no one knew from whom Plant X had bought the powder, and most importantly, there was not even a methodology for testing imported powders in Ukraine. So it was only at this meeting that the Central Research Institute of Armaments and Military Equipment was instructed to develop a programme and methods for testing powder charges for these mines, taking into account the effects of the external environment (from -3 to +60C°).
The bottom line is that mines are being withdrawn from the frontline, the DPA has to get imported mines from underground (probably for more money, because foreign suppliers already know that Ukraine has no alternative), and the great idea of developing its own weapons production has been completely discredited. However, neither Mr Umerov nor Mr Kamyshyn should have any other more important tasks at the moment," Nikolov concluded.
Defective mines supplied to the AFU
As a reminder, on 6 November 2024, it was reported that the servicemen of AFU received a low-quality batch of 120 mm mines manufactured by Ukroboronprom.
On 20 November, a video of mines manufactured by "Ukroboronprom" malfunctioning was released.
