LIVE! ‘Drone Army’. Who and how is purchasing UAVs for the Defense Forces? How to avoid corruption in procurement?

[music] Hello friends. My name is Yanina Sokolova. We have gathered today to talk in the open space. on a topic that definitely worries you all, because stealing from the army, stealing from drones, well, that's not something that's disgusting, it's something that makes you want to do something bad to a person.

I wanted to say something fatal, but I remembered that we on YouTube wish everyone well, and those who steal evil, uh, who are here for the first time, especially the viewers of my YouTube. Friends, I will say that this is a joint broadcast with our friends from proua, where we talk about conflicting but important topics.

And today it will not be a conflict topic, because there is society, but there are those who steal. Often, it is people in power who steal, but society sometimes helps them with this.

So what can be done to prevent both the first and second ones from doing this? We will discuss this today. What role does the Ministry of Defense play in this? Let me remind you that we are live.

You have the opportunity to comment, write whatever you want in the comments. We read everything relevant and I ask these questions to the guests. And as a subject of discussion, it sounds the same in the studio, so welcome, do it.

The survey will now appear on your screens. If it didn't appear because I can't see what's on your screens from the studio, then I have it. Corruption in arms procurement can be combated with the death penalty for corrupt officials.

First point. Second, by completely replacing the Ministry of Defense with volunteers. And the third point - the scale of corruption is exaggerated. This is what the editors say, I suspect, from quotes from Yulia Sveredenko, Andriy Yermak, and many other people representing our wonderful country.

Well, jokes aside. I want you to join in. The topic is relevant, but why did we raise it today? Corruption in the purchase of drones and rap. All six suspects in the case from the Naboy SAPO, including Serhiy Gaidai, People's Deputy Oleksiy Kuznitsov, and former head of the Rubizhanskaya MVA Andriy Yurchenko, received preventive measures.

If you're not aware, arrest for 60 days and bail ranging from 2 to 15 million UAH. According to investigators, they concluded state contracts with supplier enterprises at inflated prices. In short, they had a setback.

30% of the contract amount was returned as kickback to the participants in this crime. What to do about it, uh, we'll talk about it today. You have a job now, uh, to take part in the survey and comment on this broadcast with us.

I invited some important people to visit me today. Valeriy Borovik, founder of the defense products manufacturer First Contact, participant in hostilities. Valeria, congratulations.

Congratulations. Thank you for coming. Sergey Gaidai. Not the same Sergey Gaidai. different, but he is familiar with it. And today we have political strategist Serhiy, thank you for joining us.

Oleksiy Babenko, developer and specialist in the field of UAVs. Hello, Alexey. Yes, congratulations. Thank you for coming.

Well, friends, corruption in army procurement is not just a crime, it is a betrayal of our defenders. Therefore, only strict liability.

These are not my words and not yours, although such thoughts are in our heads. words of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in a video address. However, the corridor for these manipulations still remains.

And a bunch of cases, which I really hope will soon be shown, demonstrated to society, after you and I have come out and reacted to the closure of the history of the independence of the NABU and the SAPO, in particular, if it concerns people close to the president. I really hope so.

We will monitor carefully. Subscribe to the channel on which you are currently watching this broadcast, because there will be revelations of these cases here. I promise you personally.

Well, Valery, this corridor of opportunity is political will. These are rules that are not announced publicly, but are in effect in government offices, to which everyone obeys. Because this story with the 30 percent rollback, well, it's not new and it's not just in the defense sector, it's there, roads are being built there, as part of the president's programs that concern large-scale construction.

That is, my fellow journalists have already revealed all this, but the situation, which is already a full-scale war, does not change. Who is creating this corridor of opportunities and, in your opinion, as the founder of a defense manufacturing company, what is currently wrong in government offices, in particular in the Ministry of Defense? Look, you can't say that this is a trend that is, you know, common to all manufacturers, for example, someone says something, makes pushbacks, and so on.

We made this decision for ourselves back in 2014-2015, when we made the first kamikaze drone in Ukraine, underwent these draconian tests, joint decisions. Back then it was called part of the artillery, there 8-10 months and so on.

Even then, we talked about it, and plus, I'm a bit of a public figure, so in an interview I say: "We don't let anyone come near us. " So during this time, during the war, that was still the beginning of that small-scale, uh, a couple of times we only had conversations, yes, these and then such neat conversations from the conversation, that whatever, not only to speed up, that there was some kind of budget and so on, but they were so indirect that everyone knew that we were not working with this.

This is simply not interesting. I went there on the 25th, took a machine gun, and joined a special forces company. And, that is, we simply have completely different values than those people who, knowing what they are doing, make a lot of money from this, right? Well, why does all this exist? First, tradition.

This is the second question you mentioned. Indeed, this is a tradition that always backfires on everything and so on. And for some, it's built up in their heads and continues.

What I can observe over the years since 2015 is that the middle level of personnel in the General Staff has changed a lot, great officers have come to the Ministry of Defense, with whom you can normally resolve business issues, without any setbacks, and so on. Today we held a meeting, for example, there we are making big changes to the Ramstein procedures, where the Germans are funding, we are integrating here, making NATO codes.

We don't just make UAVs, we do a lot of things. So there are issues there, yes, there were flights, the equipment was neutralized there, everything is being resolved normally. And I want to say that there is a middle class of personnel who are against all this, that is, those who have completed NATO courses, who have British, American education, and so on.

That is, conditionally, most of them have already joined the Armed Forces, yes, the Armed Forces and partly the Ministry of Defense. But this, you know, Sovietism from yesterday, it still lingers.

I came to you after meeting with my good friend and acquaintance there, he is now the Deputy Minister of Defense. I can't say the deputy minister, I can't say who he is, but he's a very cool professional, very cool.

I've known him since I was 15. So, he says the same thing, that look, I have worked out things here, how to reform it, how to establish the correct decision-making, so that there are not 5-10 people making the same decision. And someone could make this decision here, well, if they could squeeze some interest in here, yes, because there is no structure and it has not been done.

And when you don't have well-established procedures and responsibility for each and every stage of this, there are people who can, relatively speaking, do it faster. The producers are someone who doesn't have the same principles that those people who went through advanced training have, or, well, a different consciousness, right? And then things like this happen.

What do you think? This is one such thing. Eh, I don't know how things will end there with the previous head of the State Special Communications Service. Hey, when we, for example, come, well, we don't just have FPV drones, we have special drones, someone says, do we confirm this or not, which participated in the web of this attack, right? That is, we do, we have always made drones specifically for special missions.

And when we come, for example, even back then, the leadership of the first state special communications and show them, look, here's an FPV drone, and here's our drone, these are completely different types of drones, then please, they are different in price and that's it. They say this can't be happening.

Here 500, here 2,000. Well, and it starts right here at the schedule, when there is something unconventional. Ugh.

Then these different proposals and solutions that you have just shown, which can influence the decision-making, can begin to earn. They don't care that there's a war going on.

And so, in the end, this is one of the things that you showed and we're talking about, I think this is one of the fairly small cases. Sergiy, yes, Mr.

Gaidai, yes, which is now, I think, unexpected for everyone. Maybe expected for you, but unexpected for everyone. Well, why do I say that? Because I have known him since the time when he was the head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration.

We have done broadcasts many times. I remember the meetings, I even joined the meetings. And it was a surprise that he could be involved in this scheme. And this is a person from the president's circle, because he changed positions, but remained close to him.

And yet, this is the person who, as far as I understand, according to the investigation, together with Mr. Kuznitsov, former student of the Rbizhanskaya MBA Yurchenko, carried out these schemes.

And why is that? Look, I'll reveal a little now, yes, I know him, I had to remind you, I've known him since I was six years old. He met me himself.

This was his initiative through social media. Some person there with my first and last name said: "Let's meet, let's meet." I thought it was some kind of relative. Maybe, well, maybe he 's looking for relatives.

We found out that we have no common relatives, except for our last name. And I said: "What, why did you want to get to know me? Well, you've been known for six years, elections, a public activist in Kyiv. Well, that's where I introduced Katerynchuk to Mykola.

He says: "You're a famous political strategist, and I dream of going into politics and becoming the president of this country." Yeah. I say: "What reasons do you have?" Well, firstly, I didn't manage to achieve what the goal was then, because I got used to it after meeting a huge number of politicians, probably the brightest was Saakashvili, that a politician is a person who is interested in remaking this world.

This main passion should be to change this world. And there was no such thing there. Well, I think, well, a young man, he's about 12 years younger than me, probably, I say: "Okay, what talents do you have, what makes you think you can go into politics? And I didn't get that answer either. And I will say, such an interesting thing.

This is me, when I meet a man, I like to ask: "What do you do for a living?" And from the answer, can you understand what he does? I asked him. There was no answer at that time.

Well, you know, she was so, so weird, like, from the 90s. I scream, I believe, I help people, I want more. I would like us to discuss it not as a person, but rather as a person.

I am for me now, yes, I will say. Yes, the problem is that our country has been building a system for 30 years where politicians, people who come to power, have the greatest opportunities, but what are they? Not to change the world, to earn money, to have opportunities. This is what this person must have dreamed about.

But something else surprises me. Ah, we all know and the authorities know that over the past 30 years you have built a state apparatus in which a huge number of such Serhiy Haidayevs have passed such a selection. There is a war now and you are instructing them to do what they are used to.

Before the war, they were involved in kickbacks in construction, in everything where the authorities decided something. And creating, look, here I am right to say, a huge bureaucracy, complications.

Why? That's why it's difficult for you, they tell you: "Let's do it faster, because the procedure is very complicated." And during the war, well, I looked at historical examples, and we love Churchill so much. Our rulers love to be sycophants.

But beyond his speeches, it was necessary to understand that at a moment very similar to now, when they were threatened by a German invasion, they understood that it was very likely that only the creation of large air forces, exceeding the German ones, could hinder the invasion. And there was a problem.

At that time, they produced very few speedfires. And look, this is a great example for us too. They found someone who had shown results before. He was a famous publisher, ah, a member of the House of Lords.

And they said: "Do whatever you want. You had results, you need to release many times more ZDfires." He doubled the production of Spitfires every month. They started with 3,000, finished with 20,000, and graduated.

And this decided the fate of Britain. It seems to me that we need to simply dismiss the entire bureaucracy, all those officials who are used to working like this, and hire other people, public, effective ones. And in Ukraine, they are sitting at this table.

Ugh. And the most important thing is to simplify the procedures for them as much as possible. How would you answer this question? Corruption in arms procurement can be combated with the death penalty. Unfortunately, I understand that there is no complicated case here, but the second one suits me best.

I am in favor of completely replacing the Ministry of Defense with volunteers. Well, of course, there are those out there who are effective. Some, by the way, are volunteers.

And yet I know that, for example, Marina Bezrukova could have been on this broadcast. Unfortunately, she has health problems there. This is a cool example.

She is an effective manager who knows how to do this, but her system has failed her. Spit it out. But look, there is a myth about the system. I heard a lot from various politicians when I asked: "You wanted to change the system." She has an opposite.

The system, look, the system is not some abstract story. These are people. In Georgia, I was friends with Georgian reformers, they did it simply. Replacing the system means removing those people who are used to, as you said, traditions and hiring new people who will carry a different culture.

We didn't do that. Look, those of us who have been in the state apparatus for 30 years are still there. And they really got used to it: war means we make money from war.

Roads, large-scale construction, we make money on large-scale construction. And you and I know a lot of people who have different values. And the war also exposed them and they understand this.

and they understand, but they didn't do it. And this is the main problem, why there are people like Serhiy Gaidai who dreamed of entering politics for the sake of success, but the success is material. This, by the way, is a subject for reflection, which I think there is plenty of time for.

Until the next election, when you go, make this choice and carefully study the background, history, motivation, programs, and lists. Friends, it seems to me that we, what are we doing with this, we probably haven't done enough as a media to work on this topic, to talk about it, so that people, I'm not talking about you specifically now, our audience is intelligent and I know how you feel about the issue of choice, but this is a subject for discussion before the next elections.

Oleksiy, the Accounting Chamber has begun an audit of the purchase of drones. The results are expected to be published in November. It's on the website.

Among the objects of control are the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff, and the Defense Procurement Agency. From January 1 to July 2025, the Defense Procurement Agency of the Ministry of Defense supplied more than 1 million FPVs for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

You saw it, the president articulated it. In total, more than 2 million FPVs have been contracted for 2025, the Ministry of Defense reports on its website. So what is reality? In reality, I communicate with the military, in particular, and it's really terrifying just from the mouths of the UAVs that we collect, by the way, we are also collecting today.

I'll remind you in a few seconds, the QR code will be there now, be sure to join. And a person from the UAV company comes to me. Well, the first problem there that we discussed was with the ebals, when using the ebals we received, we delivered equipment that did not reach the UAV company.

But the second story was that the guys, working for zero wages, used their salaries to buy parts for the drone, which the state supplies to them in a 30% volume so that it can fly, so that it can protect their lives. This is simple, I don't know, it's hard to imagine, but it's reality.

This is the figure that is on the website of the Ministry of Defense and that was announced by the president regarding the supply of 1 million drones at the moment. Is it sufficient, Oleksiy? My question to you is this.

And what is the problem that our units, in particular UAVs, do not have sufficient equipment. If everything is so bad for us, we sign a bunch of contracts, we have super cool producers. Well, it's true, we really do have super cool producers.

But guys are usually collected, yes, okay, no, no. Yes, good question. Well, the real problem here is that it's all a very long story. That is, the purchases for this year were not formed this year and not according to this year's procedures.

And in fact, the way the AOZ was created, the way the statute is written, is how we all relate to the AOZ. And the military often throws a claim at the AOZ that they are the purchasers, and if they didn't buy, then the AOZ is to blame.

But in reality, well, the function of the AO is so defined that they have no influence on anything, and are not responsible for anything. Just like subscribers.

But the signatories are not responsible. And who is responsible then? It turns out. Well, according to the law. No, it's the state.

In the state, no one is responsible, plus or minus. Ugh. How is it distributed? This is a vague responsibility that can be found if there is a desire, but in reality it is always very easy to find. It's simply signed, well, yes, and the signatory, but proving it is as simple as that, you know, when I was in our country, we actually had very few corruption proposals.

Only two actually. And then they are small and I have two. Well, they are really very small. Can you give a surname without a first name? There was some kind of two-man brigade from some brigade asking for 10% and some guy who could influence something in the Ministry of Defense also asked for something for a rollback, so I asked for a rollback. Valery, can you quickly tell me which one you had? I have it higher.

Above thirty. Above? No, higher in rank. Oh okay. No, well, if I just sent them to Denis Bigus. further on, I don't know what happened to them. Well, in short, this is not a systemic story, as it seems to me.

But the problem is not that the scale of corruption is exaggerated, but that this idiocy and distributed responsibility, by the way, if we talk about Marina, in my opinion, she just continued the trend of distributed responsibility, because about a week before this whole story with the mixing of people there, sometimes it was Marina, sometimes Arsen, sometimes Marina, sometimes Arsen, I talked to her program director via drones. And it was, well, it was, you know, it was just the ultimate surrealism imaginable in procurement.

I'm talking about effective procurement, open procedures, and so on. I'm saying, like, we supplied according to such and such procedures, and the prices for drones were such and such. They are so cheap, don't worry, we will never buy them that cheap, everything will be fine.

I say: "Well, that's cool, of course, but who will be okay with it?" Ugh. Well, this is what the person responsible for purchasing all the drones was telling me. That is, they didn't even have a position that they needed to optimize prices, improve quality, and so on.

What's different from this, well, really in this team that exists now, I'm not talking about the whole team, because there's just not enough people there, but if we talk about Arsen, then, well, it's amazing, like, there's an understanding in procurement. I haven't seen any corruption yet.

I think she's gone. Uh-, well, at the average level, I think it definitely is, but, well, if we hadn't encountered each other, because, what can I say, ah-ah, that's cool, but, uh, the AOZ is actually not responsible for anything, it doesn't solve anything. Who decides? The General Staff decides in part.

That is, when we have a need, we formally collect it from each brigade for the NACHPS. First of all, brigades, first of all, this is a branch of the army. Branch of the army at the general headquarters.

The General Staff summarizes all this. I see that we have about 1% of what we need. Well, because if everyone wrote what they needed to. This is a plus or minus without limits.

Ah, and he decides that, well, okay, this is what we're buying. Why? For some reason, the most interesting things begin there and there. Here's the most interesting thing, he got to the point correctly, that is, you have requests for, for example, a billion, you have money for 100 million.

And how do you determine that? And who determines what to buy with this 100 million? Can you buy it? No, it is determined by a group of people there. A group of people, but we can't name them exactly who they are.

No, well, maybe for sure. Well, it's a collective decision, right? That is, you have a list of suppliers with the needs of the parts that have passed and the prices. And you can either spread these 100 million from three suppliers to three suppliers, or spread it all over everyone.

And then it will be wrong for you too, because because there will be a lot of competition and there will be this and there will be me, how to say this circus, not a circus, a zoo, yes, a zoo. And when this happens, there is no procedural stipulation on how you should determine it.

Ugh. We can't even blame these individuals for anything, because, well, no, we can blame them for not rebuilding the system. This is concrete, well, it's de facto, but formally the Ministry of Defense should do this, because the fact that the General Staff took on this function is because we had Comrade Reznikov, who could not take on any function at all.

Well, if I didn't have a super cool opinion of Umerov either, but he, well, at least he took something, like at least he didn't talk about wedding drones. Ugh.

This, by the way, is a question for Mr. Shmyhal, who has now headed the ministry. The plus-minus composition is so much more interesting than interesting. But, but these changes, I would listen to you, they are really very convenient, because if anything, then no one is absolutely to blame.

But what's happening now is cool, and I think that in the history of arms purchases in Ukraine, and perhaps in any country in the world, I think this is one of the unique things. This is what Arsen and a significant part of his team, I don't know, is at the expense of the entire team, because there are definitely people in the team who, well, I'm saying, don't really believe in his, well, normal ideas, like, but they believe in not very adequate ones.

And these are the ideas of conditionally transparent procurement. Well, what they've just launched on Chain is, in fact, decentralization without any responsibility for the teams. So what's the story of this thing? I really hope that this is how to really combat corruption.

How is that? Well, it's clear that there's a lot of resistance to this right now, because I think many people don't want to fight corruption, but really, this idea is just to cut off corruption and make it impossible in the future. What is this about? This is about the fact that we take money, and previously drones were bought with this money.

Drones were distributed randomly among brigades, and all units said, "We didn't buy what we needed." What to do about this? Well, like, nothing. Rework, throw a lot of money.

And now the General Staff distributes, well, it's not even money, it's dotcoins, they called them, well, like fuck, dotcoins, whatever you want to call them, eh, they distribute them and then the brigade chooses what it wants to buy. That is, of course, corruption is possible.

Maybe Cambridge will say: "No, we only buy from my godfather and that's it." But the lower we lower this decision-making, the greater the chance that a specific operator of this, I don't know, drone, missile, or something else will approach his commander and say: "You're certainly a cool guy, but because we get poor-quality products from your godfather, we're dying a little bit here. You don't want to die for us." Well, this is really what can, well, essentially overcome, these are essentially market conditions.

That is, it's not when we manually make decisions behind closed doors about who to buy from, who not to buy from, who is doing well, who is not, without even being able to analyze it, because it's a large array of data. Listen, this is also a great litmus test of the effectiveness of a commander, and his team at the head of a brigade or corps.

This is again about what Maria Berlinska and I always talk about, about competitiveness, which is unfortunately absent. Yes.

I still want to go even lower. I think you've encountered this too. Look at the story with BPV, for example, drones. Well, today they gave you the TTX, they signed a contract with you normally, but while you were doing it, the frequencies or something else changed and during this time, while they are doing it correctly, everything is according to the TTX, but sometimes according to the technical specifications, but sometimes when it comes time to deliver, they are no longer working on the front line.

Now this is a typical story. Few people talk about it, but we had a special meeting with the previous one, Valera Churki, when he was deputy minister, you remember, so tens of thousands of drones are now lying in warehouses that are not working. The reason is the reason.

The reason is that the manufacturer made it correctly, but the situation at the front has changed. That is, this is not without reason. I just want to tell this story and raise it, because, well, today I talked about this at the Ministry of Defense and it needs to change, and not just about drones.

Therefore, I will agree. While you're working, the situation at the front has changed, you're still working, and they're no longer needed. What needs to be done? Just one or two orders for the holes to be normalized, returning them back to the customer and paying extra, for example, so that they do better.

This is a normal situation, there is a war going on. This has not been done yet, as far as I know. This is the first. Secondly, it is legally possible to do this.

There is actually a small fix for some small things now, but it didn't work out. I want to tell you more. I'll arrange a time.

The same story, for example, with the rebbe. That is, you perform, for example, even for a lot of money, so we have a 100 million euro contract with a German partner, yes, it's huge. You're happy that we've done good things during this time, right? But if you spent 100 million euros of our money, you might also get a product that won't work in the end, because they've found a countermeasure to it and are already flying away.

Therefore, several solutions are needed, which can, relatively speaking, be used to make changes to the contract in the current mode. and and changes changes in the technological chain.

What is needed for this? Not just these solutions, which, for example, even exist, they exist a little bit. It is necessary to organize a state management system so that each manufacturer, or, for example, he has 10 manufacturers, is monitored to see how he works, how the contract is being implemented, whether these performance characteristics are still working on the front line or not.

That is, in a modern, relatively speaking, new regime, tracking and changing this would not be a solution on the surface. Listen, and there will really be less room for corruption, Valery, because it will be a product that, well, will be under scrutiny.

We will know how it was or was not applied. A product lying around in a warehouse with problems is a good story for someone. in order to decide, yes, help, and so on.

That is, the fewer such stories will be unfinished, and they will work on the front lines, and when your friends there on the front lines, my brothers, yes, say that I don't have drones, then these drones are in the warehouses. They just don't need anyone.

They just don't need anyone. So it's all done, everyone has reported everything. And the fact that they don't fly, well, okay. No, they are according to the technical specifications, yes, but you can't say to anyone that you did something wrong.

It's just that war is changing and procedures and rules are needed, you could say. Well, that is, there, well, for example, how we work, our contract specifies frequencies that have not really been relevant for a long time. And we just, but our carcasses indicate that the frequencies are such and such, such and such.

We simply put in both the ones we need and the ones that are in the contract. Those who work and those who are in contact. Well, I know you have a plus, and we have close cooperation with the front line.

We go there and so on. And I had a similar story with a friend of mine who was in procurement, when they said: "Okay, we'll take your 500 complexes." I say: "Listen, can I have those who worked with us, eh, put there?" Okay, I'll give you a list. They tell me: "Today until 4 o'clock." I was there, SSO, I killed everyone there quickly.

So tell me who is responsible. I give everything. I think, oh, my 500 complexes will go to those hands, or in a month or so, when they are delivered there, completely different people will start calling me. We received yours.

I say, "Wait, what do we do with them?" Yes, what to do with them? We are not educated. And why didn't they go to the Because the procedures are two different procedures? Two different procedures. And you and I understand that we all know each other.

We have everyone's phones, everyone who makes decisions, everything, everyone says: "Yes, it will be like this." And it will be: I, I, I think that the fight against corruption is the same all over the world, except for Ukraine. And I can just tell you the principles, and you can agree with them or not.

First, there should be as few people as possible in the process. And this will lead to what you were talking about, Oleksiy, to more simplified procedures. When you have a small number of people, they are forced to work in a way that keeps procedures as simple as possible, because bureaucratic, complex procedures make it possible for the process to be slow.

But I will say something that you as producers may not always understand because you are busy with your own business. It is necessary to elect people to these positions who, as much as possible, on the one hand, already have a reputation, some kind of history.

I brought Britain there, this person has succeeded in something. And so Churchill took it and said, "I need the same success now, well, in weapons production." And on the other hand, no matter what you say, these people should have publicity, because publicity is control. A person should value his reputation.

And I noticed in my work, and Yenina can confirm this, that very often officials love silence, shadow. As soon as you start to identify them, that's how you declare that these cops, they're like cockroaches, when you turn on the light in the kitchen, if there's ever one in the student, remember, dormitories, they scatter.

And if But if a person is public and accountable for his reputation, well, there should be control by itself, and this makes corruption impossible, to be honest. Well, we don't always understand it, but more or less it works.

In other countries, at least it worked when you were under a hail of public attention. So, about this element, right? Yes, today we, well, if only we had discussed it in such a casual way. The issue of corruption on the part of commanders.

Ah, I remembered those fuckers. Well, by the way, we spoke publicly with a guy who told us about who steals and resells what, that's also true. But then he was expelled and the punishment began.

And we had a person on the air, I won't say his name because I'll reveal it then, a very media person, a very media, well-known personality, who has now left the army, because he has the right to leave, because he was a prisoner according to the law, but left because he talked about corruption on our air about drones. The Cabinet of Ministers has approved a bill that strengthens the rights and guarantees protection for military personnel who report corruption.

Shmyhal stated this. The document proposes to give them the right, ridiculously, yes, Oleksiy, to send reports of alleged corrupt actions to authorized units. I am very interested in the fact that authorized units or individuals responsible for preventing and detecting corruption in the army also leave them the opportunity to independently choose the information channel, in particular, to contact the NACP, bypassing the direct commander.

Well, what do you say about that? Is this a way to get boys and girls to report these facts of corruption? increase vigilance. There is such a very popular order.

This is when vigilance is low, it needs to be increased. An order comes like this, right? And I will capture this moment, Alexey, yes, yes, that's good. Well, you get the idea, yes, increase your vigilance.

But seriously, how much of a story is this? Well, today I remembered what Maria Berlinska told me on the air. We discussed, and it was, God, such a mess, when we discussed the issue of competitiveness of commanders and the expression of, well, conditionally anonymous assessment of their activities by their own unit.

And I remember this story how it began. But this is the way. And can what Shmyhal is saying at the Ministry of Defense have potentially positive consequences? or somehow build a system where a soldier would have the right to report that his commander is, damn it, corrupt. So, in connection with this, how to do it, there was a project, there was a project like, conditionally, this is a girah for the military, how it was supposed to work.

This is essentially feedback on everything for the military. So it seems like it should have been a plus in the army. I just don't remember the details anymore.

But it's obvious that you're doing it. You are an application. No, it comes autonomously, anonymously. In principle, it is possible to implement this so that no one can understand who sent it.

And conditionally, if there is a type but there is no star rating for the commander, because really it can spill out and then it will be real problems for the front. Ah, but there, well, like, you could write some specific offenses there, you could write some specific ones there, well, there about everything, from reviews about weapons to reviews about, I don't know, your dick there.

Eh, but it definitely didn't start. I don't even know where it actually went. Uh, well, now, in principle, Chornohorinka has been replaced, so I understand that it will either be paused, or the person who comes in her place will, in principle, take over. To be honest, I didn't follow all of this.

Today I saw a photo album with all the responsibilities and so on. I've seen some of them, some are downright good. Look, look, we need to understand here so that we don't overdo it, you know, and throw out the baby with the bathwater.

So, what do I mean, what needs to be understood, so that it is a clear, simple tool, relatively speaking, you can say up front or, well, proof, yes, with an evidentiary base, or if it is insufficiently proven, then he doesn't have documents, yes, he didn't hold a candle, then he has to have someone communicate with him. Also, we need to understand here who this DVKRchik is sitting there, or someone else, right? Because you can build things, so to speak.

Someone doesn't like the commander. Yes. Orino, well, there has to be an evidentiary basis. You can't prove what you are saying when there is no proof, for example, there is a very interesting case. We started when there was a general problem with funding.

Well, even though I was involved in big business before the war, in space, energy, and so on. Everything stopped and we went to the front. Yes.

So, we also had to raise funds. We raised funds from people for the first stage, for drones. These were investments. We even paid them interest later, saved up for the equipment, and a little bit for the drones.

That is, it's not a donation, it's like a kickstarter. What-what? Kickstarter is such a donation. That is, we said that you are participating in these investment projects. Then they decided: "Okay, fine, it all went well, we gave it back, we paid off everyone." And then we decided to let people into the company, which, for example, we did two more meetings for an underwater drone.

We are already finishing it well, I think we will show it soon. Not for us, there is a motorcycle engine production. This is a cardinal problem.

So tomorrow China will cut off and my colleague will say that there will be trouble. We will make them here not more expensive, but cheaper. This project is very complicated, because in order to move away from the Chinese manufacturer, we are forced to purchase equipment, machines, and so on in China, but also secretly import them here.

We already have the GUR there, and the authorities started saying: "Let's make a charter for you so you can bring this in." No, we ourselves went through this about two of our companies on the blacklist, foreign companies are already in China, official letters that say that these companies support Ukraine's war with Russia and are already on the blacklist, that is, Chinese special services are monitoring them. This is despite the fact that the drone components that are being sold to us, you saw, yes, the engines, well, there are a lot of Chinese parts, yes, they are there, that is, we, thank God, returned these funds.

So, I'll tell you now why I'm bringing this case. Well, in the end, last week we launched the line, the first ones we took to you, I don't know, didn't reach you. We gave it to someone in the units there.

This is for testing, so that this Ugh. During this time, 90% of investors in 1-D were worried that we had stolen something there and bought cars. Well, that's nonsense.

Someone is sitting here. And what am I bringing all this to? This example. We need to distinguish between real corruption, real cases of corruption, and someone wanting to defame someone. This is very important, because this is the second case, I'll give you an example.

So, we are making big complexes for children. I think the best in the world with the best equipment. We bet on armored Cossacks.

We bought Mercedes Unimogs, we put on them and so on. Very serious big complexes of rap. Well, let's cover them with another cover, well, never mind. We make large complexes.

So, um, when we started this project, it was at the expense of German money, I try to work very little in Ukrainian with the budget, even if it is necessary, so that everything is clear there, there are compliances, there are inspections, everything is clear. The Nanderstab officer is sitting, everything is clear.

So this is what we do with this money, when we started the project, it was actually a gift to the Ukrainian government from Germany, right? So, when the project was started, it was possible to accept Western equipment with the signature that it had arrived and was immediately going to the front. And the head of the department could do it, and then the documents had to be provided: NATO codification, everything, everything, everything, because it was urgently needed at the front.

Syrsky constantly writes: "There is not enough Reba." And we were still working on it, we still had to put it there in Kurshchyna. We currently have 50 of these rebs made.

It will be 70 soon. We just recently transferred 20. What? Because the prosecutor's office has so harassed the REP management that they can't now say: "Yes, they'll charge us for accepting these complexes, as it was yesterday. For this, I apologize, they'll kick us out." Yes, listen, it's normal that the complexes arrived, you checked them, give them to the front.

Then the official documentation is reached. It's not the official one that they don't work, but our bureaucratic one. This is old, still semi-Soviet documentation.

It was possible to do this. And now, because many people have been harassed with such checks and so on, they are not doing the work that contributes to the faster progress of this whole story. Why am I conducting these two cases? Because when we talk about fighting corruption again, we need to not overdo it so that those who don't take money, those who were educated there, as I said, in Britain, in America, and so on, those who go to work with sandwiches, relatively speaking, are not afraid to take the initiative and move forward.

That is, it has to be, you know, with a human face. This is a fight against corruption, with understanding. And we have a lot of opportunities, you give law enforcement agencies, they will arrest whoever they want and find whoever they want.

That is, there is also this fight against corruption, it should not just be about who should be imprisoned, but also about who is carrying out this fight against corruption. This is very important.

Yes. Yes. Well, for this, a system must be created in which we would make it impossible for someone to defame someone. Well, the evidence base.

Certainly. Friends, we have the results of the survey we conducted today. So, we can fight corruption in weapons procurement with the help of... There was no doubt that this would be the first point.

Death penalty for corrupt officials 69%. And with the full replacement of the Ministry of Defense with volunteers, 20%, the scale of corruption is exaggerated, 10% believe that we see support from the authorities. Too exaggerated.

I'm briefly asking you about your reaction to what you see on the screens. Listen, there are certain countries that have achieved great success in terms of development in business, investments, and everything else. who fought corruption using this method.

Now you will get a lot of comments about this. You know, I was in Saudi Arabia and the guy we worked with there was from the state, well, from the family of this prince. Uh, and in short, he stole a solar panel for, I think, 10 liters a day.

Despite the fact that he had pluses and minuses in everything. Well, he had, I think, six very fashionable cars there, and there were actually quite a few houses there. I ask and well, there and there is a beggar in Saudi Arabia, like six cars of some kind.

Everything was fine there. And at some point he comes up and says: "If they ask, that's where the solarium was. " I'm like: "Well, dude, why? Yeah, you know they're going to work your hands off for this.

" He's like, "Well, yes, that's why you tell me, please." Are you like that? In short, it doesn't work. Yes.

And how did he answer you? No, he replied, "Oh, damn, we decided to save money here." This is also money. This is also technology.

He does n't know that answer. He just does it because it doesn't exist. It may exist. Damn, we have a very similar story. Well, not with your example, but basically mentally.

That is, in order to somehow break something, you have to definitely put 30, 20. That is, even cutting off a hand does not help, as practice shows. And executions in China, unfortunately, executions in China are public, on television they don't help.

There is corruption there. Corruption does not exist where there is no person. Yes, exactly. Look, I think the answer for me has always been from the time I first saw what Georgia was doing there, and we would come there on a political tour, I was so jealous of them, I thought: "Damn, if the Georgians can do it and so on." And principle two: this is not a punishment, this is not just a punishment. No, it should be, of course, this.

And you should elect people into the system who are not interested in corruption, there are few of them, they exist. These are people of ideas.

They simply aren't interested in corruption. It's not that they don't want it, they're just not interested in it. And the second is to create algorithms that make corruption simply impossible.

Well, you would like to, but it's impossible to steal there, there's no interest. And that's it. This is this, this is this, this is this, these are really two working algorithms, more than anything. Punishment is added, everything else is added, but it can't be otherwise.

I will continue. Yanina made a very good reservation, not a complete replacement, but a complete one. I sat and I sat and I thought, I don't like any of this point, so today I was, I say it again, at the Ministry of Defense, I've known this person, the deputy, since 15 years.

There are a lot of volunteers there, there are a lot of volunteers there now, but it doesn't work out that way, you take these here, you replace these. Well, it won't work that way.

But it's full-fledged, meaning we have to honor the pros, add to them. When he showed me three or four programs today, I opened them and said: "Look here, I've worked through everything, I don't have anyone to tell." I say: "Listen, let's finance it or let the British put five people in charge who will write all this out for you in the procedures. We'll ask the British lawyer for money, let them finance it." He says: "What is the money for?" I say: "What's needed is for cool specialists to sit here, who won't be anyone's business, who will receive 5-10,000 dollars, but they will create a program that will save billions, not millions." And so this group says: "Let's plant it right here, right here, and they'll do all this paperwork for you." Okay? Well, we've parted ways, let's think about it.

Therefore, it was a complete replacement somewhere up there. Yes, yes, yes. With a complete replacement. Friends, I thank you for coming today.

I really enjoyed it. I think it's satisfying that we've figured out how it all works. And especially since next to me is Oleksiy Babenko, a developer and specialist in the field of UAVs, so you can see who is developing everything. Valeriy Borovik, founder of a defense products manufacturer.

Have you heard the coolest, greatest rap? And First, a participant in hostilities, a person who is now doing a lot for the front and for the UAV system. Serhiy Hayde, political strategist.

My name is Yani Nina Sokolova. I am very glad that you were with us today and spent this time with us. Write in the comments what you think.

And please don't forget, while I'm talking, I'm asking the team to place a QR code on the screens. Please don't forget to help ours. We are assembling UAVs.

That's 27. And we really, really need it. They wanted to collect for four, they wanted to collect for 10. We've already bought some, one is already on its way.

Total amount 10 million 10 matrices 4T. Training for the special UAV unit of the 27th Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine. Take care of yourself.

Look, if you subscribe to the channel where you see this video now, and someone from Shmyhal's team can take the link and send it to him so they can look at it and draw conclusions, then the damage will be removed from you, if there is any. Good night everyone.