BEB uncovered a fictitious scheme: Defense Ministry suppliers withdrew UAH 35 million from the budget through a “tax credit”
20 November 2025 20:34
The Economic Security Bureau (EBS) has reported suspicion of six officials of companies that are suppliers of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. They are accused of organizing a large-scale scheme of value-added tax (VAT) evasion. This was reported in the press service of the Office of the Prosecutor General, reports "Komersant Ukrainian".
As a result of fictitious transactions, the state budget underpaid more than 35 million hryvnias.
How the scheme of “non-stock” operations worked
The investigation found that the criminal scheme operated during 2022-2024 and was aimed at illegally reducing tax liabilities to the state.
Five officials of one company – co-founder, director and accountants – acted by prior collusion. They systematically reported transactions for the purchase of goods and services that were not actually performed (so-called non-commodity transactions).
Mechanism: Artificial reflection of non-existent purchases allowed to illegally form a tax credit and, accordingly, reduce the amount of VAT payable to the budget. As a result of these actions, the budget was underpaid by almost UAH 27 mln.
Separate case (UAH 8.3 mln)
It was separately documented that the head of another supplier company also overstated the amount of tax credit by using similar non-commodity transactions. His activities resulted in the evasion of more than UAH 8.3 mln of VAT.
The total amount of losses documented in this case exceeded UAH 35 million.
The investigation is being carried out by the BEB with operational support from the Department of Strategic Investigations. The announcement of suspicion of six persons confirms that the investigating authorities have enough evidence to incriminate criminal offenses:
- Ч. part 3 of Article 27, Part 3 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: Organization of tax evasion on a particularly large scale.
- Ч. 2, Art. 212, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: Tax evasion on a large scale.
