Scandal erupts as police discover 200 military vehicles up for sale

Scores of military vehicles allegedly plundered from military depots have been offered for sale in Zhytomyr Oblast, the regional police department reported on its website on March 27.

According to regional police chief Vyacheslav Pechenenko, the vehicles were discovered during investigations by local police and prosecutors into the cause of a break in a local oil pipeline.

“Over a period of two weeks, a number of raids were carried in Novohrad-Volynskiy district (some 200 kilometers west of Kyiv), Pechenenko wrote on his Facebook page on March 27.

“Nearly 200 (military) vehicles that had been prepared for sale were recovered.”

According to Pechenenko, police recovered a number of BTR armored personnel carriers, BMP infantry fighting vehicles, URAL and GAZ off-roaders, as well as KUNG trailer systems, tank transporter trucks, and elevating platforms.

A considerable quantity of allegedly pilfered spare parts, batteries, and tires were also found by the police in the course of the inquiry.

“As of now, the origin of the hardware is being looked into, including when it was registered at military units,” the police chief wrote.

Later in the day, Ukraine Prosecutor General’s Office spokesman Andriy Lysenko specified that the police on discovered as many as 196 vehicles, including 93 off-roaders, 38 trailers, 4 BTRs and a BRDM patrol reconnaissance vehicle.

The city of Novohrad-Volynskiy is the home base of a number of Ukrainian combat formations subordinate to Operational Command North, such as the 30th Mechanized Brigade, the 12th Operative Support Regiment, and the 54th Scout Battalion.

Police said the vehicles had been put up for sale on the Internet.

The BBC’s Ukrainian Service later in the day revealed that ZIL-131 military trucks with KUNG trailers had been offered for sale in a classified ad posted on March 22 on the OLX website, a popular online marketplace, by a user named “Bogdan Kosmos” for at a negotiable price of Hr 157,720 ($6,000) per item.

Apart from ZIL-131s, the user offered GAZ-66, Ural-375, and Kamaz-4310 trucks, all of which are widely used by the militaries of post-Soviet countries.

“The vehicles have zero mileage, and came from reserve depots,” the online advertisement reads. “Trailers, KUNGs, barrels, and much more are also available for sale. We work seven days a week.”

Earlier, on Feb. 25, the same user also posted another advertisement offering a 6-tonne KC-2572 military truck crane “from storage” at the negotiable price of $3,500.

Meanwhile, presidential adviser Yuriy Buriukov, commenting on the case on Facebook, said he was outraged that the country’s media had assumed the vehicles might have been plundered from the army’s stocks.

Instead, the official claimed, the vehicles could have been legally purchased as surplus by civilians under a government decree signed in 2008 by then-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is now a leading political opponent of President Petro Poroshenko.

Even though army hardware was flogged off in bulk cheaply back then, the current military command is now not entitled to re-appropriate its former property from its new civilian owners, according to Buriukov.

He called the media and the defense-sector bloggers that reported the case “common liars, who rejoice in fake news, together with those who were destroying our army,” saying they were “worse than the enemy.”

Buriukov added to his post that none of the vehicles on sale had been recorded as being in active use by the General Staff’s automobile logistics service in the past 10 years.

Prosecutor General’s Office spokesman Andriy Lysenko later said the transfer of at least some the vehicles to civilian ownership was known to have been above-board.

“As of now, the investigation is at an early stage,” Lysenko wrote on his Facebook page late on March 27. “The documents and agreements obtained for 17 vehicles confirm the legitimacy of their assignation through authorized state entities in 2013-2016.”

“Those vehicles were sold as military surplus…The sale of such surplus or worn-out transport equipment from the Armed Forces or other military formations is foreseen by the current legislation, as the vehicles (sold) are economically unviable to repair.”

However, Lysenko added, the identification numbers on some of the vehicles found had been removed, so the investigation had started a forensic analysis in order to trace their origins.

Also, according to law enforcers, 72 vehicles, or approximately 30 percent of the total, were purchased legally by commercial entities from the Armed Forces Surplus Assets Service.

According to sales documentation seized from the businessman who owns the vehicles, they were purchased from the military over the past 6-8 years. The inquiry will also check the legitimacy of the sales.

“From the investigators’ perspective, there are no reasons to arrest the owner,” Lysenko also added. “Also, there is no evidence that any of the vehicles were brought from the (Donbas war zone).”