Ukrainian court orders defense executives jailed without bail for sending thousands of useless mortar shells to front lines
A Kyiv court has ordered the detention of the general director of a defense plant in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and his deputy without the possibility of bail, suspected of supplying 120,000 defective mortar rounds to the frontline, Suspilne reports.
On 29 April, the Security Service of Ukraine detained the plant’s management. The plant supplied 120,000 defective mortar shells to the frontline. In early 2024, it reportedly signed a contract with the Defence Procurement Agency to manufacture ammunition for the Ukrainian Ground Forces.
The suspects are Leonid Shyman, the plant’s general director, and his first deputy, Oleksii Kyrychenko. The court’s ruling will remain in effect until 27 June.
Two other individuals involved in the case—Mykhailo Shkurenko, former head of a military representative office of the Ministry of Defense, and Yurii Yaresko, head of a control group—were also remanded in custody without bail, according to UkrInform.
Investigators say the mortar rounds were produced using substandard materials, including propellant charges that failed to meet military standards.
The scheme organizers attempted to reduce production costs to obtain higher profits from the government order. Military officials who were supposed to monitor the quality of defense products deliberately overlooked the defective batch of ammunition and entered false information into the reporting documentation.
Ukraine has codified and approved over 10 mortar models from domestic and allied countries such as the US, Poland, Finland, Germany, and Sweden since 2022.
