The company of Prykarpattia businessman Bohdan Pukish acquired a strategic plant for an astronomical sum

The company of Prykarpattia businessman Bohdan Pukish acquired a strategic plant for an astronomical sum

State enterprise «63 Boiler and Welding Plant» in Ivano-Frankivsk, founded in 1945 as a front-line auto repair workshop, was sold at auction for 2.6 billion hryvnias to the private enterprise «Vestkhim». Until 2010, the plant belonged to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, and then it was incorporated into the state concern «Ukroboronprom».

This was reported by the publication «Halka» .

The starting price at the auction was just over 20 million hryvnias, but «Vestkhim» immediately offered 127 times more – over 2.6 billion. Such a sudden overpayment raises the question: why is someone willing to pay billions for an enterprise that was until recently bankrupt? Among the 13 auction participants, "Vestkhim" offered the maximum amount in the first round, significantly exceeding the next offer of 320 million hryvnias from LLC "Stroyukom" from Zakarpattia. The answer may lie in the schemes by which the funds for the purchase were obtained.

The owner of «Vestkhim» is Bohdan Pukish, who has been actively discussed in the media recently as a person connected with Putin’s confidant, Viktor Medvedchuk. Pukish is accused of his companies fulfilling defense orders, producing low-quality products at inflated prices. Moreover, there are serious suspicions that the funds received from these contracts are deliberately misused — they are directed towards personal enrichment and corruption schemes instead of ensuring the safety of Ukrainian soldiers. Such activities directly threaten the lives of soldiers, their safety directly depends on the quality of defense supplies. Thus, with funds received from the state through dubious contracts, Pukish acquired a strategic object of significant importance for the country’s defense capabilities. His connections with the pro-Russian party «Ukrainian Choice» and participation in the privatization of defense enterprises raise serious concerns about the transparency and legality of such agreements.

Even more alarming is the information from insiders that Pukish plans to use the plant’s territory for purposes other than intended. Instead of preserving the industrial object, he likely intends to demolish the plant and build a residential complex in its place. Such a step could lead to the destruction of an important industrial asset critical to Ukraine’s national security.

Bohdan Pukish

This is not the only case where assets associated with Medvedchuk’s people are under scrutiny. Recently, assets of enterprises belonging to Medvedchuk’s and Kazak’s relatives worth 16 million UAH were arrested and handed over to ARMA in the Lviv region. This indicates the scale of the schemes through which people close to enemies of Ukraine continue to benefit from critical assets.

This situation once again demonstrates that the state must strengthen control over the sale of strategic enterprises, especially defense ones, which previously belonged, for example, to the Ministry of Defense or «Ukroboronprom». The SSU should closely monitor such agreements to prevent important objects from falling into the hands of individuals with pro-Russian ties. This is a matter of national security, and only timely actions by law enforcement can prevent the risks threatening Ukraine’s defense capabilities.