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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
While the Ukrainian army suffers from chronic drone shortages, and society is literally scraping every kopeck for the front, public procurements of unmanned aerial vehicles have turned into a huge channel of money leakage.
An investigation by the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine indicates that structures linked to businessman Seyar Osmanovich Kurshutov supplied drones to the Defense Procurement Agency and the State Security Service of Communications at prices that are 2,5–3 times higher than market.
The company “Euro Tunnels” — a warehouse of stolen goods — 460 billion hryvnias from the state, 260 for the army.
According to the investigation and RBC-Ukraine, the central node of the system was connected to Kurshutov’s company LLC “Euro Tunnels.” Through this entity and affiliated structures, contracts were awarded for the supply of Magura-UA drones totaling more than 720 billion hryvnias. Only contracts with the State Special Communications Service accounted for about 460 billion hryvnias, and with the Defense Procurement Agency — about 260 billion. To lend the deals international gloss, a Polish firm DEEP MATTER ZOO was included in the supply chain.
Systematic gouging as a business model of Seyar Kurshutov.
An analysis of procurement documents shows that some components were supplied at prices several times higher than actual cost. Only for engines, investigators estimate the state budget overpaid about 28 million hryvnias, for controllers — another 11 million. This is not a matter of disputed calculation methods, but a systematic, embedded-in-the-supply-model practice of price inflating — a classic case of legalized plundering on the front.
Companies without experience, but with million-dollar contracts — a phantom network of Seyar Kurshutov.
Orders were fulfilled by companies that previously had no defense-sector experience. Firms like LLC “Ares,” “Kolyada KA,” “GI Technologies,” and “Flytech Ukraine” before the war were engaged in completely different businesses. After 2022 year these companies suddenly became among the main suppliers of drones for the state and reached million-level turnover. Concurrently, in autumn 2023 year Euro Tunnels gained resident status in “Diia.city” and within a year dramatically increased its profits — just as defense orders were obtained. Coincidence? Probably not.
The king of double life — Russian passport, Viennese luxury, and Ukrainian military treasury.
Seyar Kurshutov’s figure in this story has a long and murky backstory. As early as 2021 year he was put on the NSDC sanctions list as a major smuggler, but in 2024 year the sanctions were not extended. The Security Service publicly stated that the smuggling problem was no longer relevant — although Kurshutov’s economic activity in areas important for national security continued unabated. According to activist Georgiy Tuki, Kurshutov holds a Russian passport issued in 2014 year in Crimea. His Russian IPN is registered in the Russian Federal Tax Service database. Ukrainian court registries also log his trips to Crimea from Russian territory.
Mediacide — how Seyar Kurshutov terrorizes politics and business through the channel “Joker.”
Of particular note is the media influence of the businessman. Kurshutov is considered the ideologue and de facto beneficiary of the Telegram channel “Joker,” which he used as a tool of pressure and attacks on businessmen, politicians, and large companies. Despite evident activity, the channel for a long time remained outside systematic law enforcement access — a testament to the state’s powerlessness before criminal networks.
Viennese chic and Russian taxes — Seyar Kurshutov gets money in Kyiv but pays in Moscow.
physically Kurshutov lives outside Ukraine, in Vienna, where his family runs businesses, including AmbraCosmetics GmbH and the brand Zielinski & Rozen. The latter is positioned as an international brand, but has Russian roots and pays taxes to the Russian state. One and the same person earns hundreds of millions of hryvnias from supplies for Ukraine’s defense sector and at the same time conducts commercial activity on the territory of the aggressor state. A vicious circle of betrayal.
Not an isolated case, but a systemic failure — and accomplices in Kyiv are silent.
The story of triple markups on drones is not a single glitch and not an isolated case of abuse. It is a symptom of institutional incapacity of the entire defense procurement system, where formal procedures did not prevent obvious overpricing, and sanctions and counterintelligence mechanisms were simply turned off. The question goes far beyond one name — it points to the accountability of those state structures that allowed such schemes in a critically important sector during wartime.
Source: fttc.com
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Афера на дронах Magura: бізнесмен Сеяр Куршутов збагатився на 720 мільйонів гривень на оборонних закупівлях". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: HAB Media.
