One of the owners of the Turkish company that received $30mn for the scandalous purchase of lightweight jackets for the Ukrainian military under the guise of winter jackets was the nephew of a member of the Servant of the People party.
This is 26-year-old Oleksandr Kasay, the nephew of MP Hennadiy Kasay, who is a member of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence. This was reported in a journalistic investigation by Ukrainian Pravda.
The suspicious scheme of purchasing light jackets at the price of winter jackets became known thanks to another journalistic investigation published on 10 August on ZN.UA. It turned out that the cost of one pack of 4,900 jackets for the army en route between Turkey and Ukraine increased by about $300,000 - the shipment initially cost $142,000 and became $421,000. On the way to Ukraine, these simple camouflage jackets were documented as winter jackets.
"The supplier of the scandalous jackets for the Ukrainian Armed Forces was the Turkish company Vector avia," said journalist Mykhailo Tkach.
The Ukrainian Defence Ministry paid tens of millions of dollars to this company.
On 23 August, the Verkhovna Rada Anti-Corruption Committee held a meeting on the scandalous purchase.
"Deputy Defence Minister Denys Sharapov, a business partner of the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, came to the committee to defend both the Defence Ministry and the Vector avia jackets," Tkach said.
Sharapov said that the customer had no complaints about the jackets delivered. He also brought a jacket to the meeting, but not from the delivery where the jackets were documented to have changed from summer to winter on the way to Ukraine.
It also turned out that law enforcement officers became interested in the supply of low-quality uniforms from Turkey back in October 2022. Back then, customs officers noticed that according to the documents, the uniforms for the army went from Turkey to Moldova at the same price, while they entered Ukraine from Moldova at a much higher price. Law enforcement officers do not rule out collusion between officials of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry and Vector avia. The founder and director of the company, Roman Pletnev, is already suspected of committing a crime.
Pletnev is indeed the sole owner of Vector avia, but until February 2023, the company also had a second owner, a relative of MP Kasay, now 26-year-old Kasay Oleksandr Pavlovych.
Before being elected to the parliament, Hennadiy Kasay was the director of the Yunist Sports Palace of Motor Sich, whose president Bohuslaev is now a suspect in high treason. The MP's brother, Oleksandr Kasay's father, also worked for Bohuslaev for many years.
"In fact, the former co-owner of the supplier of jackets for the Armed Forces himself was also a handball player at the Motor club of the same Boguslayev until recently," the journalist added.
Oleksandr Kasay ceased to be a co-owner of the company after Ukrainian law enforcement officers opened the investigation. At the time of the delivery of the questionable jackets, he still was.
The journalists asked Kasay how his handball player nephew from Zaporizhzhya decided to become a co-owner of a company in Turkey, which later received $30mn from the Defence Ministry. He assured them that he did not know at the time that his nephew had become a co-owner.
"I have nothing to do with this company. I didn't know that my nephew was a founder or something like that. I know for sure that he is not a founder at the moment," said Gennadiy Kasay.
The purchase became known after an investigation by ZN.UA. In October-December, Vector avia imported 233,000 jackets worth 20mn hryvnias and another 202,000 pants worth 13mn dollars into Ukraine. However, these were not winter jackets, as stated in the documents, but lightweight ones.