PJSC Astra Lux, which receives millions in orders to supply clothing to the military, has ties to the family of former Ukrainian Minister of Justice involved in the Mindich tapes scandal, Herman Halushchenko.
This was reported by Slidstvo.Info.
The connection can be traced through his former wife Olha Bohdanova, who, according to declarations for 2019–2021, used an Astra Lux Land Rover. Her mother and former stepfather had business ties with the company’s owner.
Thus, the owner of almost 94% of the company’s shares, Olha Serheieva, together with the mother of Halushchenko’s ex-wife, Liudmyla Bohdanova-Pohoretska, were co-founders of the company ‘Kominar-Service’. And her former stepfather, Yurii Pohoretskyi, managed the subsidiary Astra-Med, which at that time was owned by Astra Lux. See the diagram for more details.
Diagram showing the connections between Herman Galushchenko’s family and Astra Lux
Journalists from Slidstvo.Info tried to speak to Olha Serheieva about her company’s ties to Herman Halushchenko, but due to poor connection, she asked them to send her a text message. The journalist replied that she had sent her questions via WhatsApp. The woman had not read the message by the time the article was published.
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According to Tetiana Nikolaienko, deputy head of the Public Anti-Corruption Council at the Ministry of Defence, Sergeieva’s company is a key supplier of textiles to the Ministry, and that the military sometimes complains about its products.
“The company is one of the oldest and largest suppliers to the Ministry of Defence. Several times, military personnel have privately complained to me about the quality of this company’s jackets, but we have not received any official complaints,” Nikolaienko said in a comment to Slidstvo.Info.
Nikolaienko also noted that some items at Astra Lux “were more expensive than those of other suppliers”: “For example, while Textile-Contact owned by [Oleksandr] Sokolovsky supplied a special summer suit at a price of 3,799.5 [hryvnia] per unit, then Astra Lux supplied it at 4,189.80 [hryvnia]. If we take the purchase of summer field suits, in February 2024, Textile-Contact signed a contract at a price of 1,882.50 [hryvnia] per unit, while Serheieva’s company signed a contract at a price of over 2,000 [hryvnia] per unit”.
According to data from the BI Prozorro analytics module, the company’s key customer in terms of the value of contracts concluded since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion is the State Logistics Operator under the Ministry of Defence. The institution has concluded contracts with the company worth over one billion hryvnias.
The products of “PJSC Astra Lux were first contracted by the State Logistics Operator at the end of 2024 for the supply of summer field suits (type 1) made of type 4, class 7 fabric. A total of 13 contracts were signed for the supply of various types of clothing and equipment,” replied the State Logistics Operator in response to a request from Slidstvo.Info.
They also noted that currently, “SLA Astra Lux is at 96%,” where “SLA is a metric that measures the timeliness, completeness, and quality of delivery”.
The response also indicated that “individual cases of violations of delivery deadlines and non-compliance with the quality of goods during acceptance” were recorded, but these goods were not accepted and no money was transferred to Astra Lux for them.
“As a result of these violations, nine claims/demands for penalties were filed against the manufacturer in 2024: five for late delivery and four for quality defects. One of these claims is currently under judicial review,” the response to the request states.
Slidstvo.Info mentioned Astra Lux in 2020. At that time, journalists discovered at least three criminal cases against the company.
In particular, it was alleged that it had financial transactions with companies showing signs of fictitiousness, which could indicate complicity in deliberate tax evasion.
Astra Lux, along with a number of other companies, also offered the Ministry of Defence winter jackets and trousers at a price 70 per cent higher than that offered to one of the departments of the Security Service of Ukraine.
And between October 2012 and December 2014, the company’s representatives failed to pay taxes amounting to almost 4.5 million hryvnias.
In the court register, Slidstvo.Info found a case from 2023. In it, the prosecutor requested permission to search the premises of a military unit of the State Border Service. According to the ruling, border service officials could have conspired with company executives to embezzle state funds. During the searches, in particular, they wanted to find documents about the unit’s relationship with the company Astra Lux.
In addition to criminal cases, journalists also found commercial cases in the register concerning late delivery of products. Therefore, Slidstvo.Info asked the State Logistics Operator whether they had studied the company’s court history before starting to work with it. The State Logistics Operator responded that, in accordance with the law, ‘the rejection of a participant’s proposal cannot be based on the existence of current or past legal disputes.’
“The law clearly defines an exhaustive list of grounds for rejecting a participant. At the same time, within the framework of procurement procedures, the State Logistics Operator provides for a comprehensive check of contractors by anti-corruption control and compliance departments (compliance with rules and legal requirements, — ed.). This allows us to assess risks and ensure an adequate level of integrity when concluding contracts,” the response states.
As a reminder, former Minister of Justice and Energy Herman Halushchenko appears in the case of corruption at Enerhoatom.
According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, while serving as Minister of Energy, he was involved in a scheme whereby companies that wanted to provide services to Enerhoatom had to pay a 10-15% kickback. Otherwise, they would not pass through the ‘barrier.’ In other words, they would not continue to cooperate with them as suppliers to the state-owned enterprise.
On 12 November, the government suspended Halushchenko from his duties as Minister of Justice. And on 19 November, MPs voted to dismiss him from his post. On 21 November, the former minister was questioned by NABU.
