“Army of drones project: Ukraine overpaid almost 600 million hryvnias for the purchase of UAVs last year — investigation October 30, 20:23 Share: Autel Robotics EVO Max 4T (Photo: Dronarium) In 2023, the state lost approximately 600 million hryvnias on the purchase of Autel EVO MAX drones within the framework of the Drone Army project jointly with the Ministry of Digital Transformation. This is stated in the Hromadske investigation published on Wednesday, October 30.”, — write on: ua.news
Autel Robotics EVO Max 4T (Photo: Dronarium)
In 2023, the state lost approximately 600 million hryvnias on the purchase of Autel EVO MAX drones as part of the Drone Army project jointly with the Ministry of Digital Transformation. This is stated in the Hromadske investigation published on Wednesday, October 30.
The material says that the drones were purchased through the Kryon-M company, which has a charter capital of UAH 765 and specializes in the trade of furniture, carpets, lamps, etc. However, in 2023, Kryon-M began selling UAVs to the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection.
As noted in the investigation, there was no transparent tender, and the offers were provided by those companies that were invited by the State Intelligence Service itself.
Hromadske journalists found out that since July 2023, Kryon-M has sold 3,900 drones to the state for approximately one and a half billion hryvnias. Yes, the cost of one drone was almost 500,000 hryvnias. For comparison, in June 2023, the Serhiy Prytula Volunteer Foundation bought such drones complete with one battery for 280,000 hryvnias, and in August – for 212,000 per piece.
Journalists also found out that the Ukrainian company Flytechnology, which directly cooperates with the manufacturer Autel, in the fall of 2023 itself offered wholesale batches of those drones to the State Special Communications Service for 212.5 thousand UAH per piece. However, the contract with this company was not concluded. At the same time, the State Special Communications Service signed two contracts with the Kryon-M company, according to which it purchased 1,074 and 1,912 drones, respectively.
As noted in the investigation, on the first contract concluded in May 2023, Kryon-M “got richer” by approximately UAH 195 million, and the contract signed in August 2023 — by almost UAH 398 million.
In addition, journalists learned that the company bought drones from Polish UMO and German Danator, whose founder is Ukrainian Serhiy Velichuk.
It is noted that in September 2023, Kryon-M bought 912 Autel drones from UMO at inflated prices — for almost UAH 447 million. Thus, the cost of one drone was almost UAH 490,000 at the then exchange rate, the material said. For comparison, the journalists noted that the official European distributor of the Autel company sold the same drones for UAH 280.5 thousand in September 2023.
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Kryon-M purchased drones from the German Danator at inflated prices, hromadske writes. Thus, in July 2023, the Ukrainian company purchased 532 drones from Danator for 6,240,000 euros, which is 11,730 euros per piece, which is about 487,000 hryvnias at the current exchange rate. At the same time, the Prytula Fund bought the same drones for 212,000 the following month after this delivery, the investigation notes.
According to Serhiy Velichuk, his drones allegedly have special firmware and are therefore more expensive. However, the technical expert of the Prytula Foundation stated that the drone’s firmware is absolutely standard.
According to the investigation, in July 2023, Kryon-M purchased at least 1,074 Autel drones from Danator. The party cost 14 million 130 thousand dollars, or 516.5 million hryvnias.
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At that time, the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection were responsible for the purchase of drones. The head of the Ministry of Statistics Mykhailo Fedorov said that he found out about the inflated prices in September 2023, because he did not monitor the prices at first. At the same time, the head of the State Special Service, Yuriy Shchygol, said that he was not involved in procurement procedures at all, Hromadske writes.
As noted in the material, NABU has opened criminal proceedings on the facts of overpricing of drones, but no charges have yet been brought forward.