- Ukrainian Armored Technology has emerged as a top weapons supplier for Kyiv.
- The company, whose sales have skyrocketed, is believed to be controlled by Serhiy Pashinsky.
- Before the war, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy described Pashinsky as a "criminal."
A Ukrainian arms dealer widely suspected of corruption before Russia's full-scale invasion has now emerged as a top weapons supplier for the government in Kyiv.
Serhiy Pashinsky, a former member of parliament, is today head of Ukraine's arms trade association. Sales at his company, Ukrainian Armored Technology, have jumped from less than $3 million before the war to hundreds of millions of dollars today, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Ukrainian Armored Technology has since February 2022 helped secure scores of bombs and bullets across Europe for use by the country's armed forces, according to the Times. Since the war began, it has been one of Kyiv's most reliable suppliers.
That's despite the fact that Pashinsky, before the war, was a pariah, a man who was put under house arrest over a road rage incident and described by Zelenskyy himself as a "criminal" amid allegations of corruption.
But, according to the Times, Pashinsky's ties to arms dealers made officials overlook those earlier accusations. Bulgaria, for example, would not sell Ukraine the Soviet-era ammunition it needs, the Times reported, fearing it would invite retaliation from Russia. Pashinsky was able to negotiate a deal whereby the ammunition was sold to a middleman in Poland who in turn passed it on to Ukraine, for a cost.
Ukrainian Armored Technology experienced a windfall. In 2021, according to the Times, it reported just $2.8 million in sales. In 2022, that figure rose to more than $350 million.
The company's use of middlemen may have been essential in the early days of the war. But Ukraine's reliance on them is a reminder of the country's decades-long struggle with corruption, one that its leadership is once again taking steps to publicly address.
The Times noted that Pashinsky and Ukrainian Armored Technology are once again the subject of an anti-corruption investigation. And the outlet's report comes a day after Zelenskyy announced the firing of military officials tasked with recruitment, citing reports that some were accepting bribes in return for exempting men from the draft. Ukraine, Zelenskyy said earlier this year, will not "return to the way things used to be."
"Of course, now the main focus is the issue of defense, this is the issue of foreign policy, this is the issue of war," he said. "But this does not mean that I do not see and hear what is being said in society at various levels, both at the central level and in the regions."
Despite concerns about corruption in Ukraine, however, experts told Insider last year that there's no evidence that weapons meant for the front lines are being diverted to the black market in any sizable numbers.
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