Have you seen Hlyniana’s trunk? That’s enough. How Defence Ministry’s food mafia has kept its market
Censor.NET investigated whether the perpetrators of the 17 UAH eggs should be punished, what happened to Hlyniana's trunk, and why the reform of food supplies for the army failed.
As you know, in early 2023, Yurii Nikolov published an article stating that the Ministry of Defence could purchase eggs at 17 hryvnias. This was the price of eggs listed in the catalogue of the company "Active Company", which is part of Tetiana Hlyniana's group.
As a result of public outrage, the Verkhovna Rada adopted amendments to the law, and the Ministry of Defence was forced to return food procurement to Prozorro in May.
And a year later, in January 2024, NV Business journalist Artem Alin found hotels in Croatia that Tetiana Hlyniana had bought for herself.
A source of NV Business in Split said that he had seen Hlyniana managing one of the hotels. The journalist found a connection with the Mirari, Ora and another hotel, the name of which the source did not know.
NV Business managed to find out that the first hotel is registered to the legal entity NAZARII d.o.o. (Brela, Croatia). Croatian websites that publish business intelligence based on legal registers indicate that the founder of this company since 2016 has been Tetiana Hlyniana. In 2022, her daughter Irina Kut became the owner for some time. Since the autumn of 2023, Hlyniana has been the beneficiary of three more Croatian companies.
A week after the story of the hotels came to light, Hlyniana sold the property to a Croatian no-name businessman, and then accidentally lost a bag with documents and money that she had forgotten on the street outside her house.
And while society was in shock from the hotel story, the Ministry of Defence was trying to implement a catering reform. To be more precise, the SLO drew up a plan for itself, which was methodically defeated by opponents in 3 months.
Moreover, they even failed to change the qualification criteria for suppliers and to ensure that the customer sees documents on the constant availability of warehouses.
And "Atomservice" even sent a letter to Defence Minister Rustem Umerov saying that if they did not get the old criteria back, they would withdraw their offers from the auction.
The letter from "Atomservice" stated that they were not satisfied with the fact that companies could apply for a maximum of 4 lots out of the announced ones. Although this requirement was set by a collegial body under the previous Minister of Defence. "Atomservice" was against the fact that the company received funds 50 days after the last delivery. Although in the previous weeks, the DOT had been criticised in articles in the DOT's telegram channels for wanting to give advance payments to suppliers.
"Atomservice" was not satisfied that the company would have to supply goods to other areas than those specified.
As a result, the old food producers realized their threat - having lost the court case, they withdrew their bids. SLO was forced to enter into direct contracts with subcontractors. Often offering larger volumes than they asked for.
This was followed by three weeks of actual failure to supply food to the army, and the SLO had to change companies that failed to deliver on the fly. At the same time, some procurement officers were also adding fuel to the fire, ordering 50 kg of basil or some unknown sago cereal that was in the catalogue. And sturgeon.
The SLO survived and supplies stabilised. The agency changed the catalogue and removed sago cereal, flax seeds and sturgeon from it. Unfortunately, the reforms ended there.
Almost all of the old players returned to the supply side with the next auction.
And in July, Ukrainians had to open their mouths in surprise and outrage once again. And again because of Hlyniana's company.
The BES seized more than €4.7 million in unaccounted cash from managers of companies in the Hlyniana pool.
"The money was transported by the company's accountant in the trunk of the car. The woman could not explain the origin of the money. The detectives exposed the attempt to smuggle and hide the "black" cash during the investigation," the BES press release said.
Everything was enchanting and beautiful, and Ukrainians were sharing pictures of the trunk for a week until they were replaced by dollar signs from the Krup family. But in fact, nothing happened with the investigation after that.
Currently, only one ruling on this case can be found in the register of court decisions. And that's it! And this ruling states that the Kyiv Court of Appeal refuses to seize property in this proceeding.
Moreover, according to rumours, the detective in this case was sent for re-certification.
The NABU case concerning 17 UAH eggs is also under investigation. Detectives are waiting for the results of the examination.
In September, the SLO presented a new model of food procurement. At the presentation, Deputy Minister of Economy and now Head of the Supervisory Board of the SLO Nadiia Bihun stressed that "the catalogue should be destroyed". The "State Logistics Operator" did indeed propose a pilot project in 5-7 regions for categorical procurement (sausages, cereals, milk, meat, vegetables, etc.).
However, nothing went ahead as planned. In November 2024, the SLO conducted food procurement under the old system. Prior to that, the "State Logistics Operator" announced the imposition of operational and economic sanctions against "Trade Granit Invest", which had supplied counterfeit stew to the frontline.
And despite the fact that "Trade Granit" was the lowest bidder on several lots, it was not recognised as the winner because it did not indicate these sanctions in its documents. But the trouble is that it was actually replaced in these lots by a shadow company, "Trade Poltava", which had previously been involved in litigation with them.
At the last auction, more than 2 billion was earned by "Meat Prom", the company involved in the scandal with the trunk with 4.7 million euros. Another 2 billion went to the "Buskyi Canning Plant", which used to be a contractor of the Hrynkevych family. And the company's ultimate beneficiary, Oleksandr Lapshyn, received two apartments as part of a cash loan from Hrynkevych, a defendant in the criminal proceedings, because of the latter's debt.
BCP has already earned UAH 6.6 billion from SLO tenders. And this is only from tenders, because in the second quarter the company also had direct contracts worth several billion.
And the company "Kontrakt Prodrezerv" had the largest profit on tenders - more than 12 billion from the SLO.
And in this context, it is worth recalling that it was the Kontrakt Prodreserv that was the first of the old guard to return to supplying the SLO. Moreover, even before the SLO decided to abandon the previous supplier, some units received letters from "Prodreserv" that they would soon return to supplying them.
It is not clear where this optimism came from. And no one seems to have investigated it. But the company received more than 3 billion more under direct contracts.
It is worth noting that the company has historically been associated with the security forces of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
At the last auction, the SLO limited the possibility of winning to 2 lots. But this does not mean that one of the bidders will not use another company as a signboard for itself.
And the worst part is that no one applied for a large-scale pilot project based on the new supply formula. Now it will take place only in the Kyiv region.
In informal conversations with the author of the article, company representatives said that they had not received clear explanations from the SLO and decided not to take any risks in order to avoid problems with law enforcement.
Now the SLO with the Ministry of Economy are looking for a new formula to change the system.
But there is a good chance that the food mafia will retain this market.
On the positive side, companies can no longer include sky-high prices in the catalogue, such as eggs for 17. And they cannot drop below 40% of the State Statistics Service price.
However, even 35% is enough for them to collapse their price in the catalogue and then bring low-quality goods to the military, maintaining their margin. And not very high fines allow them not to deliver products within 10 days.
That is why the author of the article opposed the amendments made by MPs who wanted to remove the 7% penalty for defence suppliers. And it should be returned for food supplies.
Tetiana Nikolaienko, Censor. NET
