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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
It set up barriers for foreign experts to participate in the competition.
The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine 18 announced a competition in September to select two independent members of the supervisory board of the Agency for Defense Procurement, which is responsible for overseeing how purchases are made by the state enterprise that is allocated the largest sum for weapons and support of the Defense Forces. However, the members of the supervisory board will be chosen by a company of a former presidential office employee, the Anti‑Corruption Center (CPC) points out.
At the end of August, the state enterprise “Agency for Defense Procurement” ordered, following Prozorro bidding, a service to search for and select candidates for the positions of independent members of the ADP supervisory board from Friisberg and Partners International LLC. The company, which was the sole participant in the tender, is planned to be paid 948 thousand UAH for this.
As “Nashi Groshi” wrote, Friisberg and Partners International LLC was registered in 2008 as BI.EM LLC. The company’s director and beneficiary is Olena Maisiura. The firm is part of the international network Friisberg & Partners International.
According to the company’s website, before starting work at the company, Maisiura in 2022 was head of the organizational activity department of the presidential office (that is, a subordinate of Andriy Yermak), although there is no person with that financial declaration in the Unified State Register of Declarations.
Earlier Olena Maisiura also worked as HR director of the company Medzhisters, whose partners included people such as former defense minister Oleksii Reznikov, lawyer Serhii Svyryba—who, according to Ukrainska Pravda, was a classmate of Andriy Yermak—and lawyer Andrew Mac, who is close to Yermak.
As the CPC indicates, Friisberg and Partners International LLC effectively has no confirmed experience in forming top management for large state companies.
In 2018–2019 the company cooperated with Ukrgazvydobuvannia PJSC, providing it with consulting services and conducting employee professional development.
At the beginning of 2022 the company won a tender to select an internal auditor for Centrenergo PJSC, and was also supposed to select candidates for the State Property Fund of Ukraine, select independent members of the supervisory board of Ukrainian Distribution Networks PJSC, members of the supervisory boards of ADP and DOT, the chair of the board of Naftogaz of Ukraine, and members of the supervisory board of Zaporizhtransformator PJSC. But all these procurements, for various reasons, did not end in contract conclusion or candidate selection.
The only similar implemented project was the selection of candidates for the Entrepreneurship Development Fund, but that was not for managerial positions.
Anti‑corruption activists raised additional questions about the conditions the company set for conducting the selection of supervisory board members.
Candidates must submit documents to participate directly to Olena Maisiura’s email address, and the submission period is only 10 working days. At the same time, the announcement of the selection on the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine’s website still needs to be located.
The CPC emphasizes that these conditions can significantly limit the pool of potential candidates, primarily among foreign experts from EU countries. They are required to submit documents in Ukrainian or with a notarized translation, which requires additional time.
A particular issue is the requirement for a certificate of no criminal record, which in European countries is issued only within 7–28 days from the request. Moreover, the document itself must still be translated and notarized.
As Vitalii Shabunin, chair of the CPC board, suggests, such conditions were set so that only the desired candidates would pass to participate in the competition.
Recall that former ADP head Arsen Zhumadilov resigned from the Agency of his own accord on 1 September. At the same time, a wave of scandals had been building up around him. For example, in spring 2025 he dismissed deputy Artem Synyk, which effectively led to the elimination of the internal mutual control system that allowed direct weapon purchases.
In the fall, Zhumadilov appeared on the “Mindich tapes,” in particular in an episode regarding the purchase of then‑poor quality bulletproof vests from Timur Mindich’s company.
And after Zhumadilov’s resignation announcement, Ukrainian drone manufacturer General Chereshnia reported nontransparent ADP tenders regarding fiber‑optic drone procurement.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Членів наглядової ради АОЗ обиратиме компанія колишньої підлеглої Єрмака — ЦПК". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ZN.ua.
