Former Kherson Military Command official: buried and "neutralized" shells

In Kherson region, law enforcement officers exposed a large-scale scheme to misappropriate budget funds allocated for humanitarian demining.

According to the Kherson Regional Police, the fraud involved the director of a private enterprise - a certified mine action operator - and the head of a group of deminers. The scheme was uncovered by operatives of the Department of Internal Security together with investigators of the State Bureau of Investigation under the procedural guidance of the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office.

According to the Most media outlet, the suspects are former Kherson Regional Military Administration official Vitaliy Karavayev.

The defendants won a tender for humanitarian demining of more than 120 hectares of land. However, they did not plan to carry out the work - these areas had already been cleared in 2023-2024 by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and were used by farmers.

To get money, the scheme participants created the appearance of work. Sappers went to the fields to simulate demining: they dug up the soil, planted ammunition, and "neutralized" it on camera. After that, they would draw up fictitious certificates of completion with false data.

As a result, the customer received documents on the allegedly cleared territories, and the offenders received more than UAH 6 million from the state budget.

The suspects have now been served a notice of suspicion under articles on misappropriation of property and forgery. They face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.

The investigation is ongoing as law enforcement officers identify other possible participants in the scheme.

Earlier, Intent wrote that in Kherson region, a court passed a verdict in a case of fictitious demining of agricultural land, which resulted in the payment of more than UAH 4.4 million from the budget.

As a reminder, in Mykolaiv, a utility company became the first and currently the only one in Ukraine to receive an official permit to carry out demining work. The utility company officially received the permit to survey and demine the territories in April 2025.

Андрій Колісніченко