State refused to pay UAH 4.5 million for vehicles, and now it has signed contract with KrAZ to buy same vehicles for UAH 5.6 million – Zhevago

Zhevago said this in an interview with Forbes.

“This is a lie. They did not want to pay us for the cars that had already been assembled. They refused to pay the exchange rate difference after the exchange rate rose to 36 UAH/$, while the contracts were signed at 28 UAH/$. We said: 'Please compensate us fairly, because we buy many components for dollars.' Instead, they bought Tatras, which are four times more expensive - for dollars and euros, not for Ukrainian hryvnia,” Zhevago said.

He added that the company was ready to provide guarantees for the fulfillment of the state order, but on a prepayment basis.

“We are ready to put dollars in the accounts of any state-owned bank and provide a guarantee for the entire amount of the subscription, that you will receive this money if we do not deliver the cars. Instead, we are offered contracts without a prepayment, and then they don't pay for a year, two, three... The exchange rate changes, we have courts, criminal cases,” he said.

The entrepreneur said that in 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not purchase a single vehicle from KrAZ. Before that, they bought five cars without a subscription. Another five refused to buy and sold them at a loss to the company after nationalization, in January 2023.

“After the nationalization, in November, we didn't get paid until March because we didn't have any orders. The state refused to pay us UAH 4.5 million per vehicle, but today it has signed a contract with KrAZ for the same vehicles at UAH 5.6 million per vehicle,” he emphasized.

Kostyantyn Zhevago added that he is proud of AvtoKrAZ.

“This is a Neptune missile system that stands on a KrAZ chassis. These missiles heroically and symbolically sank the cruiser Moskva. The development of the chassis for Neptune, built jointly with the Luch Design Bureau, cost me, as a shareholder, several tens of millions of hryvnias. If the state really wanted to develop the enterprise, it would have ordered these systems. But just as the corrupt Poroshenko government used to buy MAZs for the Ukrainian army instead of buying KrAZs, this government used to buy Tatra trucks for the entire previous year instead of buying KrAZs,” Zhevago added.

Background

• On November 7, 2022, National Security and Defense Council’s Secretary Oleksiy Danilov announced that the assets of Motor Sich, Zaporozhtransformator, AvtoKrAZ, Ukrnafta, and Ukrtatnafta had been transferred to the Ministry of Defense.

• In February 2023, former AvtoKrAZ CEO Cherniak told Espreso that at the time, although more than three months had passed since the nationalization procedure, the plant had 'neither a customer nor a real owner.'

• In April 2023, the shareholders of AvtoKrAZ PJSC sent an open letter to the ambassadors of the G7 countries to draw attention to the fact of the illegal alienation (de facto expropriation) of their company in favor of the state. The shareholders of AvtoKrAZ stated that they did not understand on what basis and for what purpose their property was taken away (expropriated) and what the government was guided by when making such an inefficient and incompetent decision. “It is not necessary to take away shares in order for the plant to work for the benefit of the state. All that is needed is to place government orders for the necessary products, provide the necessary financing with appropriate guarantees and give the opportunity to work to the specialists of AvtoKrAZ PJSC - people who will not experiment with production in such a difficult time for the country, but know their job well and will make every effort to win,” the statement says.