The stay in the Ukrainian embassy threatens to disrupt the supply of weapons

The standoff between the Minister of Defense and senior officials and officials to participate threatened to rise on Monday, prompting the government’s dissension at a critical moment to defeat President Trump to keep the supporting the war against Russia.

The conflict broke out three days ago, when the minister spoke, Rustem Umerov, he said that the contract of Maryna Bezrukova, the head of the defense equipment agency, will not be renewed, calling it “unsatisfactory”. But on Monday Ms Bezrukova said she would remain in her post, pointing out that her contract had been renewed by the Agency’s Supervisory Board and that Mr Umerov had no right to overturn that decision.

The agency was established to ensure transparency and efficiency in arms procurement. Some activists and activists, including a prominent one from the party of President Volodymyr Zelensky, condemned Mr. Umerov as an abuse of power that undermines anticorruption efforts.

“The work of the minister is a serious violation of the law and the management of the company,” Ms. Bezrukova said at the end of the week, calling it an “attack” on the Agned Agency during the war.

He reported to his office on Monday, and it is not clear how the standoff will be resolved.

The dispute raises an organization that managed $ 7 billion in the year last year and became a partner of Westernes WhesTies in the industry of Defense Reconive – Objective Kyiv.

Western graduates in Kyiv met with the government and officials on Monday to discuss the situation, said several attendees, who spoke on condition of anonymity. At the same time, the head of the Ukrainian anticorruption committee called for the resignation of Mr. Umerov.

The Ukrainian defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment. It seems like Mr. Umerov, if Mr. has not offered criticism so far. Zelensky.

This is not the first time that the officials of the Oust have moved to the Ukrainians with the responsibility of reforming the institutions, some of them have caused internal disputes. Last year, for example, Oleksandr Kubrakov was fired as infrastructure minister for reasons that are not yet clear.

But the attempt to rob Miss Bezrukova comes when she is struggling to send enough weapons to her frontline forces and faces the risk of losing the necessary weapons to her ally, the United States.

Activists also worry that it sends the wrong message to Western partners, especially the US Republicans, who have long expressed concern about corruption in Ukraine. “Umerov’s task is to respect our defense capabilities and our ability to maintain the trust of our international partners in disarmament,” said Daria Kaleniuk, the director. the executive at the Center of Churction Actives.

Mr. Umerov said in a post on Facebook that the agency failed to “supply men and women in time for our army” and will be built on “a game -politics, and information about information, and information about information.” He did not give specific examples.

Tamernan Vahabov, a former adviser to Mrs. Bezrukova who resigned last year, also criticized the agency, saying it failed to properly evaluate the deal. He emphasized that the agency relied too much on the procurement of state-owned enterprises instead of directly targeting private suppliers.

Ms. Bezrukova was appointed to head the Defense Communications Agency last year, after Mr. Umerov as Minister of Defense. He promised to crack down on corruption in the ministry after a series of scandals over botched deals on weapons and basic supplies like food.

The main task of Mrs. Bezrukova, who was a former senior official of the national power company, was to remove the middlemen – often soft arms dealers who often manipulated prices. He said that the agency has reduced the share of Ukrainian intermediaries from 81 percent in 2023 to 12 percent last year. These figures could not be independently verified.

Miss Bezrukova said that her work led to conflict in the ministry. He said his defense officials forced him to sign a contract with a Ukrainian arms company that lacked the manpower and ammunition to produce the shells. After it was produced and sent to the front, there were many shells that did not burn, causing great embarrassment to Ukraine.

The Ministry of Defense admitted that more than 20,000 shells were removed. But others believed that the figure was higher.

Mr Vahabov said that although she faced pressure, Ms Bezrukova should have been more vocal in opposing the deal. He also said that he was able to witness the control of the production of weapons in the factory. He said there were many “normative and administrative problems” with the agency’s structure that hampered the procurement process.

Mrs. Bezrukova said she hoped that the establishment of a supervisory board in an agency last year, applauded for safeguarding its independence. “I don’t want to be a window dresser or a famous washing machine,” he said in an interview.

However, a day before the first meeting of the board, on December 17, the Ministry of Defense drafted the agency’s charter, which effectively gives the ministry authority over most of the decisions. decision of the board. “They bypassed the authority of the board,” said Yuriy Dzhygyr, chairman of the board and a former deputy of Mr. Umerov.

After voting last week to extend Ms. Bezrukova’s contract for a year, Mr. Umerov said he would not renew the contract and announced the removal of two government representatives from the board, including Mr. Dzhygyr.

Mrs. Kaleniuk, the anticorruption activist, said that the charter does not provide the defense service and says that it expands the contract in the head of the agency. The Charter, translated by the New York Times, allows the Ministry of Social Affairs to expel officials from the agency “if there is an existing or potential threat to national security in Ukraine.”

It is not yet clear what legal reason Mr. Umerov had for burning Ms. Bezrukova.

With the western partners, especially the European ones, unable to provide all the needs of Ukraine’s weapons, the agency has helped in an initiative that uses western money to pay for the contracts signed with the arms manufacturers. – war. The defense minister said that more than half of the billions of dollars worth of weapons was generated through new mechanisms last year.

Whether this new mechanism will continue to work given the current outlook is not clear.

“This is the worst time for Kyiv to turn back the clock on the success of the reform of the market share: when it needs additional funding for weapons and anti-censorship in Moscow. Joshington and in Washington are looking for doubts Ukrainian security administration, “The German fund in the United States, there was a research institute, said.

Andrew E. Kramer Dedicated delivery.