Lyashko, while urging people to buy Ukrainian products, called the deputy minister a “nerd”

Lyahko, urging people to buy Ukrainian, referred to the deputy minister as a "botan."

During a roundtable at the Committee on Industrial Policy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the LPR faction leader Oleg Lyashko went off the rails, urging support for domestic producers and criticizing the government, according to a correspondent of ASN.

"Yes, I ask: where are the government representatives? Why are they not here? I ask! Where is Kubiv? Where is Nehoevod - botan? Where are all the others? They are not here because they do not care about Ukraine's interests," Lyashko said in his traditional provocative style. Lyashko recalled that Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade Maksym Nevyadov constantly talks about the success of ProZorro: "Transparent! Transparent! Transparent will be when incomes of Ukrainians grow," he said. Lyashko noted that he would insist on adopting the bill No. 7206 "Buy Ukrainian, Pay Ukrainians": "This law is a jet engine for our economy."

Let us launch it together. And everyone who is against it, we will break their sticks and not notice, and we will move on," he said.

As a reminder, earlier another Radical Party deputy Viktor Halasyuk detailed on his page on social media the essence of the bill. Its main goal is to take into account not only the price factor during tenders, but also the country of origin of goods or services.

"Opponents say that there is no real problem, allegedly according to statistics ProZorro has more 99% of participants and winners in public procurement — Ukrainian companies, less 1% — foreign. Therefore, "Buy Ukrainian, Pay Ukrainians!" is not timely and "only populism."

However, according to experts' estimates, about 38% of goods and services within state procurement are imported or contain a significant imported component," Halasyuk noted.

According to his calculations, about 100 billion hryvnias go abroad, which could have been income for Ukrainian companies. At the same time, opponents of the bill, including in MERO, believe that introducing a "national amendment" would destroy the ProZorro system.