Umerov changed his mind about defending the Defense Ministry's reputation in the scandal with non-existent "eggs for 17 UAH"
Kyiv • UNN
The Ministry of Defense withdrew its lawsuit against the State Audit Service over the purchase of eggs at 17 hryvnias after Rustem Umerov became Minister of Defense.
The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, under the leadership of Minister Rustem Umerov, withdrew its claim against the head of the State Audit Service Alla Basalaeva, who erroneously claimed that the Ministry of Defense purchased eggs for the army at 17 UAH per piece. Apostrophe writes about this with reference to the State Audit Service.
UNN has at its disposal two rulings of the Kyiv Commercial Court.
The first one, dated September 6, 2023, refers to the opening of proceedings in case No. 910/13757/23 on the protection of business reputation and the obligation to refute false information. The court decided to add Alla Basalaeva, the head of the State Audit Service, as a third party.
At the same time, after Rustem Umerov was appointed Minister of Defense, on October 4, 2023, the Ministry of Defense filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and on October 11, 2023, the court issued a corresponding ruling.
According to Apostrophe, the State Audit Service also refused to provide additional comments on the "17 UAH eggs" despite the fact that their purchase was officially denied.
As a reminder, in January 2023, the purchase of 17 eggs was denied by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov, and, in fact, the State Audit Service's audit itself, according to the official, did not contain such conclusions. More precisely, the State Audit Service noted in its conclusion that no documentary evidence of transactions under this contract was found during the counter-check with the supplier in December 2022. That is, there was no payment with "17 UAH eggs".
At the same time, contrary to the results of the State Audit Service's audit, the head of the same State Audit Service, Alla Basalaeva, stated that she had allegedly established the fact of buying eggs for 17 UAH, which turned out to be false.
As a result, the Ministry of Defense filed a lawsuit in court, including a request to request from the State Audit Service a duly certified copy of the extract from the act of 27.03.2023 No. 000800-21/5t, drawn up by the State Audit Service based on the results of the audit of the Ministry of Defense and units of the Armed Forces for the period from 01.01.2022 to 31.12.2022.
Already in December 2023, Oleksandr Klymenko, the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, denied the purchase of eggs at UAH 17 during the All-Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Forum, answering a question from Anastasia Radina, the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy.
Moreover, at the end of January 2024, Umerov's own Defense Ministry, in response to a request from the Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Defense, reported that eggs had never been purchased for 17 UAH.
This was reported by journalist and member of the Anti-Corruption Council Tetyana Nikolayenko on her Facebook page , publishing the official response of the Ministry of Defense
