Cooperation between Ukrzaliznytsia and Deutsche Bahn: another multimillion fraud with a Russian trace

Cooperation between Ukrzaliznytsia and Deutsche Bahn: another multimillion fraud with a Russian trace

Over the past several years, or even longer since the establishment of the joint-stock company, many different attempts have been made to reform the much-suffering Ukrzaliznytsia.

A professional supervisory board headed by the powerful financier Shevki Adzhuner regularly invited professional foreigners to managerial positions, which led to a significant devaluation of the company’s assets and a rapid decline of fixed assets.

At first a team of Polish specialists was invited, who, amid their own PR, unsuccessfully tried to reform the Ukrainian railway according to the Polish model, splitting the company into 4 separate verticals and running away.

Then came Georgians with criminal traces in their homeland, who gave away Ukrzaliznytsia’s cars for practically nothing while trying to do the same with the company’s most liquid assets; in the end, like the Polish specialists, they disappeared without a trace.

And when the influence of “professional foreigners” was minimized thanks to the intervention of the NSDC, the newly appointed management of Ukrzaliznytsia again, for some reason, tries to involve foreign consultants, continuing to implement Shevki’s strategic decisions despite his dismissal for inept management.

Let’s try to break down this situation in more detail.

In 2019, then acting CEO of Ukrzaliznytsia Yevhen Kravtsov (I hope he is a familiar figure to everyone) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in Davos with the German company Deutsche Bahn.

The cooperation’s goal was to provide a wide range of consultancy on management and reforming the company. As a result, a tender was announced for the procurement of consultancy services with an expected cost of 85 million UAH.

However, due to a broad public resonance in the media about a procurement written for a single specific participant, DB, and publications about the difficult financial and economic condition of the German company, which annually recorded losses and survived thanks to multimillion-euro injections from the German budget, the tender, under pressure from certain state leaders, had to be quietly dropped by Kravtsov.

Two years pass, the company is now headed by Oleksandr Kamyshyn—of course, not without the help of Kravtsov’s people—and we see that a Prozorro announcement appears for the procurement of similar services, but now with an expected cost of 304 million UAH.

And here, as always in our country, the cost of consultancy has miraculously increased by 3,5 times.

And supposedly the euro rate has not risen much, and the condition of the passenger sector, while it could be much better, has not significantly changed. Yet for some reason the cost of services has grown substantially. Although the Germans will probably advise Peretsovskyi on the correct way to fill air conditioners so as not to break them, or how to properly iron linens. But when it comes to the national carrier in our realities, this is no laughing matter.

We tried to figure out the reason for such a price increase for the services, but we could not find a rational answer.

It is unknown how the expected procurement cost was formed and whether Ukrzaliznytsia consulted other railway companies (besides DB) that have successful experience specifically in reforming passenger rail transport to determine it.

The project’s technical and economic justification is based on the need to carry out the supervisory board’s decision in the name of Shevki Adzhuner, what expectations are placed on the provided services (concrete goals and ways to achieve them), how they will be implemented, and whether anyone will bear responsibility if these consultations do not lead to positive changes.

And here the question arises: who exactly will be the advisors/consultants providing such high-priced services?

According to the publication hvylya.net, Yurii Romanenko, DB was also involved in reforming Russian railways, so the consultants’ staff will include a substantial number of Russian and Belarusian specialists. It is not hard to guess what those specialists will get: access to a wide range of information about train schedules, dispatching features, and communications. In the context of Russian aggression, this is dangerous and irresponsible on the part of Ukrzaliznytsia’s leaders!

And indeed, among the so-called consultants the prominent manager of Kravtsov’s era was noticed: the Belarusian specialist and former Director of Strategic Development of Ukrzaliznytsia, Anton Sabolevskyi.

This specialist distinguished himself in the ranks of Ukrzaliznytsia’s top management perhaps only by researching psychotropic routes and utter nonsense that has nothing to do with the national carrier.

Unless Anton can tell the German specialists how interesting it is to travel on our trains in the circle of close acquaintances in the IT field, for example with a Russian passport!

Yes, among the official DB delegation a citizen of the Russian Federation, Aleksei Semenov, was noticed, a so-called IT specialist.

Against the backdrop of massive hacker attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, the decision of Ukrzaliznytsia’s leaders to admit this specialist is not only foolish but also raises other suspicions...

It remains unknown who might be advising Oleksandr Kamyshyn to continue engaging such foreign consultants: Yevhen Kravtsov, Mykola Nesterenko, or his own advisors, among whom there are also holders of Russian passports?

It sounds like nonsense, but we have grounds to assert it! We believe Oleksandr Kamyshyn can guess whom we are hinting at?!

It is also interesting to know whether the newly appointed Supervisory Board of Ukrzaliznytsia will agree to work for 2 years according to the Strategy approved by the Supervisory Board in the name of Shevki Adzhuner?

A rhetorical question!

From our side, we can only advise the newly appointed leaders of Ukrzaliznytsia to invest these funds in renewing fixed assets and involving domestic manufacturers, who continue to preserve jobs and pay taxes in Ukraine.

To be continued...