Broken contract with the Ministry of Defense and new contracts: who was entrusted with the critical infrastructure of Kherson region

In the Kherson region, more than 320 million hryvnias from the state budget were allocated for the classified protection of critical infrastructure. Most of the funds were given to a company that had previously disrupted a large contract of the Ministry of Defense, and the authorities hid the details of the new agreements from the public.

This was reported by Nikcenter.

The Infrastructure Restoration Service of Kherson region has signed four agreements for the protection of critical infrastructure facilities totaling UAH 320.25 million. Most of the funds - more than 260 million - are to be allocated to a company affiliated with a Donetsk utility company that had previously canceled a contract with the Ministry of Defense.

Contracts for the reconstruction of facilities No. 6, No. 7, No. 9 and No. 10 within the Kherson community went to Atlantics Construction Company LLC. The protection of facility No. 8 in the Chornobaivska community will be carried out by European Road Construction Company LLC.

Each facility was valued at UAH 64.05 million, and the contractors have until March 31, 2027 to complete the work.

The project is being financed from the state budget reserve fund as part of an experimental program to protect critical infrastructure. At the same time, the authorities concealed not only the locations of the facilities, but also the content of the contracts, estimates for materials, and all tender documents.

The European Road Construction Company, owned by Muslim Keloyev, has long been one of the largest contractors of the Kherson Region Infrastructure Restoration Service. It regularly receives multimillion-dollar contracts for road repairs and construction, and at the end of 2025, it also became the executor of a classified project to reconstruct critical infrastructure facility No. 5 in the Chornobaiv community for more than UAH 64 million.

However, the appointment of Atlantics as a contractor raises a number of questions. The company, registered in Kyiv in 2017, had been working for a long time mainly with small procurements in Kramatorsk and had no significant government orders. According to YouControl, in 2024, Yevhen Pasichnyk became the owner and director of the company. After that, Atlantics began to actively win large tenders, first in Donetsk region and later in other regions of the country.

The company's largest government contract so far was an agreement with the Ministry of Defense to build a water supply system for a military camp. However, auditors found irregularities in the procurement process: the cheaper bid was rejected without proper grounds, which eventually led to the contract being terminated.

Despite this, the company received three large contracts for critical work at once. Whether Atlantix has sufficient financial, human, and technical resources to fulfill them is not publicly known - only the Kherson Oblast Infrastructure Restoration Service has this information.

In addition, in 2025, the service signed three more classified contracts for the protection of critical infrastructure, each for more than UAH 64 million. Two of them were awarded to Ukrbud-Project-Reconstruction LLC of Volodymyr Mahliovanyi, and another to Global Build Engineering LLC of Serhiy Tolstikov. Both companies are involved in investigations into possible overpricing of construction materials in wartime.

The contractors have until June 30, 2026, to complete work on all contracts signed last year.

In April, Intent found out that more than UAH 250 million from the reserve fund was used to protect the critical infrastructure of the Kherson community. At that time, three contracts were awarded to Kyiv-based Atlantics Construction Company LLC.

Анна Бальчінос