Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov offered a bet and promised to resign over corruption scandals – if he is proven guilty
Amid accusations of purchasing and supplying summer jackets instead of winter ones, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov offered a bet to a female MP and a journalist. They responded
Babel writes about this.
According to the newspaper, if it turns out that 180,000 winter jackets were delivered instead of summer jackets, MP Anastasia Radina should resign her mandate, and Ukrayinska Pravda journalist Mykhailo Tkach should resign from the publication and stop working in journalism for three years.
However, if it is the other way around, Reznikov will resign.
The minister said that during the review of the situation, the Defense Ministry would provide all documents, evidence, facts and materials related to the case, “so that the winner of the dispute would be obvious to the entire Ukrainian society.”
In this bet, Oleksiy Reznikov asks the Committee on Ethics of Deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Commission on Journalistic Ethics to be the arbitrators, and the editorial offices of Ukrainian publications to be the observers.
Reaction of journalist Mykhailo Tkach to the Minister’s proposal
“I will leave only when the last internal executioner of Ukrainian society, who thinks that he can use the power of society in his private interests with impunity, is cornered. But for now, the ideas of those who are on the way to this corner do not bother me. Because that’s my job“, – wrote the journalist of “Ukrainska Pravda”.
Instead, Tkach said that Reznikov should have resigned after the investigation into the Defense Ministry’s purchase of eggs at 17 hryvnias.
“But you have dragged the society into a show with kilograms, pieces, and other manipulations that have no place in the Ministry of Defense during a full-scale war,” Tkach said.
According to the journalist, he also does not understand why the minister wants Tkach to stay away from journalism for three years.
“How much more time will it take to cut the budget of this country into the pockets of non-Turkish jackets?” – the statement reads.
According to him, in three years Reznikov may no longer be the Minister of Defense, and Tkach will continue his work.
Reaction of MP Anastasia Radina
MP Anastasia Radina suggested that Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov refute the information about the incident by 9 a.m. on August 28:
- The Ministry of Defense bought the jackets without a tender from a “Turkish” intermediary company, one of whose owners at the time of the contract with the Ministry of Defense was the fully Ukrainian nephew of MP Kasai, a member of the Defense Committee;
- The Ministry of Defense paid three times more for the jackets than the price indicated in the document from the Turkish side, with which the cargo left Turkey and passed through other customs up to the Ukrainian border. The authenticity of the document was confirmed by Yaroslav Zheleznyak, the head of the PIC for the investigation of economic crimes.
If he does not refute this information, he should resign.
“If you refute me, I will resign my mandate immediately after the adoption of the law on the restoration of public declaration of officials’ assets, including military commissars and procurement officers for the army,” Radina added.
According to her, the minister of a belligerent country should now deal with his subordinates, provide the military with UAVs and launch a logistics procurement agency. However, according to Radina, Reznikov should not spend his time“fighting journalists.”
What preceded the scandal
On August 10, it became known that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine had allegedly signed a contract with a Turkish company to supply winter clothing for the military in the fall of 2022. In fact, “camouflage jackets” were sent to Ukraine, which were re-registered as “winter air protection jackets” on the way, which were almost three times more expensive.
On August 25, it was reported that one of the owners of the Turkish company that received $30 million for the scandalous purchase of lightweight jackets for the Ukrainian military under the guise of winter jackets was the nephew of a member of the Servant of the People faction. The servants did not refute this information, but instead set the entire Minister of Defense against the journalists.
