Former district councilor from Odesa region to be appointed in charge of procurement for the army

Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov has announced his decision to appoint Arsen Zhumadilov, the former head of the Bilyayivka district administration of Odesa region (now liquidated), as the head of the Defense Procurement Agency.

According to the minister, the current leadership of the agency has failed to cope with its tasks, so Maryna Bezrukova and her deputy, Dmytro Klimenkov, are to be dismissed.

In particular, according to the minister, there are no plans to extend the contract with Maryna Bezrukova, who heads the agency, and the decision to dismiss Dmytro Klimenkov must be made by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

"Over the past six months, instead of timely supply of ammunition to the army, we have received political games, leaked contracts, leaked information (law enforcement will definitely check these facts), PR for inaction and failure to fulfill the KPI by a subordinate enterprise of the Ministry of Defense. For some reason, arms procurement, which should be closed during martial law and a full-scale war with Russia, has turned into an Amazon, where every Internet user can see in real time who is buying what, in what volumes and from which manufacturers," the minister said.

Earlier, Maryna Bezrukova said that due to the scandalous low-quality 120-mm mines, her relationship with Defense Minister Rustem Umerov "began to deteriorate." This refers to the purchase of mines that did not work at the front.

Arsen Zhumadilov is already the head of the Defense Ministry's procurement agency, the State Logistics Operator, a Crimean Tatar born in Simferopol. He is a lecturer at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. In 2022, he was mobilized to the Medical Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and was in charge of procurement in the military medical service. Since April 2023, he has been heading the Defense Procurement Reform Team at the Office of Support for Change.

Prior to that, he headed the state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine. In this position, in 2020, he criticized the activities of then-Minister Ilya Yemets, accusing him of slowing down public procurement.

Arsen Zhumadylov won the competition for the position of Director General of the State Enterprise "Medical Procurement of Ukraine" in April 2019.

In 2016, Arsen Zhumadylov took part in a competition for the position of Deputy Head of the Odesa Regional State Administration, in which he won first place. However, for unknown reasons, he refused the position.

Later, on the NewsOne TV channel, the then-governor of Odesa region Mikheil Saakashvili stated that the appointment of deputy heads of the Odesa regional state administration was being delayed by representatives of the Presidential Administration.

In March 2017, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko ordered the dismissal of Arsen Zhumadylov from the post of head of the Bilyaevsky District State Administration, which he had held since 2015.

Кирило Бойко