The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has appealed to law enforcement agencies because of an attempt by companies to disrupt procurement of products for the military. This was reported by the press service of the defense ministry.

"On November 1 and 2, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced a simplified procurement of food for the Ukrainian army on the Prozorro e-procurement platform. A lot for the purchase of food was put up in one of the regions. One of the companies competing for this lot had not conducted any financial and economic activity since 2016, its bank accounts were closed, and it had no documents to confirm the qualification criteria. In addition, the company had the highest price offers among the bidders," the department said.

As explained, due to suspicious facts, the Ministry rejected the company's price offer to participate in the bidding. In response, the company filed a lawsuit and blocked the process of determining the winners.

The Ministry of Defense has already filed a criminal complaint with law enforcement agencies about the criminal offense under Part 1 of Article 114-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (obstruction of the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations).

"There have already been cases when certain companies have abused the principles of openness and manipulated Ukrainian legislation. However, such lawsuits were not successful. I would like to emphasize that the Ministry will respond firmly to such attempts to attack public procurement for the needs of the Armed Forces within the law," said Deputy Defense Minister Dmytro Klymenkov.

The Ministry of Defense emphasized that they have found signs of a similar "scheme" being used for other lots.