Ukraine's top army medical supplier pushes back against SBU allegations of aiding Russia

CEO and co-owner of Kyivguma Andriy Ostrogrud rejected the claims of the Security Service of Ukraine regarding assistance to the aggressor state. According to him, the company has completely stopped any cooperation with Russia since February 2022, and the companies from Estonia and Switzerland, which feature in the SBU case, are long-term clients of Kyivguma, not straw companies for supplies to Russia.

The businessman confirmed that since February 2022, these companies received goods worth about 1 million euros from Kyivguma (the same amount was indicated by the SBU in its press release), but he assured that there were no means of tactical medicine there.

"These totals include hot water bottle rubber bags, oilcloths, syringes, finger guards, pacifiers for children, etc. There were no 'tactical' positions. But our "servants of God" included such a position as a Martens bandage [elastic rubber bandage] to the tactical supplies.This is a thin 3.5m and 5m household rubber band that we have been producing for over 70 years and is used by thousands of companies and individuals.Not only that, the supply of these items is several tens of thousands of euros, and not a million," Ostrogrud wrote.

He believes that the matter is connected with the desire "to knock down the company as the only and largest manufacturer of first aid kits [for the Armed Forces] and to install its suppliers of Chinese crap."

Kyivguma plans to prove its case in court.

On January 4, the SBU reported that it suspects Kyivguma of wholesale supplies to Russia through a European shell company. According to the investigation, in 2022-2023, several batches of tactical harnesses and bandages with a total value of more than 40 million hryvnias ($1 million) entered Russia from Ukraine.

The products then ended up in the individual first-aid kits of the Russian military and in military hospitals.