Editor’s Note: Read the Kyiv Post’s story about how secrecy in Ukraine’s defense spending may be hiding corruption here. Also, this story is updated with a statement from Ukroboronprom, the state’s arms dealer, issued after the article was published in the Sept. 15 print edition of the Kyiv Post.
Since President Petro Poroshenko came to power in early summer 2014, key positions in Ukraine’s defense industry and military procurement have been taken up by his long-time business partners.
Oleh Gladkovskiy is one of them.
As the first deputy secretary of the Ukraine’s National Security and Defense, Gladkovskiy has direct influence on state defense production and procurement policy.
Moreover, Gladkovskiy also chairs the Interdepartmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation and Export Controls, thus having the last word in the country’s arms sales abroad.
He has been part of the president’s inner circle since at least the early 1990s.
Between 1997 and 2012, Gladkovskiy, then known as Oleh Svynarchuk, was a deputy director general at UkrPromInvest, a group of companies belonging to Poroshenko.
With Poroshenko, he established the Bogdan Corporation vehicle producer, becoming the company’s supervisory board chairman in February 2005. The company quickly became one of Ukraine’s biggest automobile producers, as well as the army’s main source of specialized armored cars.
In 2009, Svynarchuk eventually became Bogdan’s sole owner after he bought out Poroshenko’s major share in the company.
Since 2008, Svynarchuk has had a 9.9 percent share, some shares held directly, and some through intermediaries, in the International Invest Bank, in which Poroshenko has a 60 percent share.
After the Euromaidan Revolution, Svynarchuk entered politics, running Poroshenko’s presidential campaign office in Chernivtsi Oblast in the spring of 2014.
Just two days after the Central Election Commission declared Poroshenko the new president, Svynarchuk on June 4, 2014 officially changed his name to Gladkovskiy – his mother’s maiden name.
On Aug. 13, 2014, Poroshenko appointed his business partner to the interdepartmental commission. Then, on Feb. 17, 2015, Poroshenko appointed Gladkovskiy first deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
Before that, on July 4, 2014, the newly elected war-time president had placed UkrOboronProm, the giant state-run defense industry concern of over 130 enterprises, and Ukraine’s main producer of weapons, into the hands of Roman Romanov, the man who had run his election campaign in Kherson Oblast.
In Kherson, Romanov was the owner of the Avtoplaneta Plus car dealership, an authorized dealer of the Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors, and a city council member.
Moreover, according to an investigation published by journalist Oleksiy Bratuschak in news website Ukrainska Pravda, Romanov’s dealership was an official partner of the Poroshenko’s and Gladkovskiy’s Bogdan Corporation in Kherson Oblast.
However, after the story was published, the Ukroboronprom press service told the KyivPost on Sept. 15 that Romanov had never been Poroshenko’s business partner. However, they provided no information to refute the results of Bratushak’s investigation.
“After becoming head of the concern, (Romanov) established the policy of decency, openness and public accountability at Ukraine’s state-run defense industry group,” the press service wrote in an e-mail to the Kyiv Post, adding that over the past three years up to 25 directors of the group’s enterprises had been suspended for uncovered wrongdoing, and another 18 officials disciplined following internal investigations within the concern.
