The Polish company made a fortune on contracts with Ukraine. A scandal broke out in Kyiv

Mysterious connections, multi-million dollar contracts and tangled deals. This is the story of a Polish company that has become a key player in the arms supply market and a controversial debtor of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. How did the inconspicuous Alfa company become a tycoon with a turnover of millions? Here are the results of the journalistic investigation of “Ukrainian Pravda”.

At the beginning of April last year, The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense signed a large contract for the supply of the most needed items at that time, including ballistic helmets, bulletproof vests and armor inserts. The value of the contract was EUR 24.5 million. At this point, the Polish company Alfa entered the game, which is currently one of the ten largest debtors of the Ukrainian Ministry of National Defense.

• Currently, the Ukrainians are trying to recover from the Polish company EUR 27 million in advance payments and almost EUR 13 million in penalties for disrupted deliveries
• Further contracts were concluded, although the company had problems with the implementation of the earlier ones
• Ukrainians are trying to undermine the agreements at the level of the International Court of Arbitration

The company managed to deliver bulletproof vests and liners, albeit with delays. However, out of 16,000 helmets they brought, 11 thousands were immediately returned as inappropriate, and another 5,000 were left in storage, not accepted by the army.

For unexplained reasons, despite supply disruptions, on October 25 last year, The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine again ordered another 20,000 helmets and 50,000 bulletproof vests worth almost EUR 50 million from Alfa. There was no prepayment this time. As "Ukrainian Pravda" found out, the helmets were never delivered, and half of the bulletproof vests donated failed ballistic tests.

The most controversial, however, are other agreements with the participation of the Polish company, which are known to the Ukrainian Office of the Ombudsman.

First, on April 22 last year. The Ministry of National Defense of Ukraine has signed a contract with Alfa, among others for the supply of 122 mm ammunition to the D-30 howitzer and 122 mm shells to Grady. Five days later, on April 27, 2022, an agreement was concluded with the state-owned arms importer, the Ukrainian Progress Company. It was the same ammunition.

According to "Ukrainian Pravda", the importer "had to buy" it through Alfa. However, the price for the same weapons from the same manufacturers in both contracts differed by several dozen percent.

The contract with Alfa was performed at the level of 10%. On the other hand, Progress, which demanded much higher prices.

Currently, the Ministry of Defense is trying to recover EUR 27 million in advance payments and almost EUR 13 million in penalties for disrupted deliveries from all contracts concluded with the Polish company. He does not question contracts in Ukrainian courts (when dealing with a foreign company), but through the International Court of Arbitration. Some of them are already undermined before this body.

Where does Alpha start?

"Ukrainian Pravda" notes that Alfa was founded in Poland as a limited liability company in 2005. Since then, it has not been particularly successful. It only draws attention to the text of the "Polityka" weekly from 2015. It is a conversation with the company's president, Piotr Sapieżyński, about winning a tender for the scrapping of decommissioned ships of the Polish Navy.

Alfa has not yet submitted its financial statements for 2022, when it signed contracts worth millions in Ukraine.

How did an inconspicuous company from Poland become one of the largest suppliers and debtors of the Ministry of Defense during the war?

Who in Ukraine could lobby for Alfa and win more and more contracts for it? These questions remain unanswered, but "Ukrainian Pravda" announces the continuation of its journalistic investigation.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to find any sources about Alfa's scams in Poland or whether any proceedings have been initiated.