KIEV, may 22. /TASS/. Ukraine postponed to 2025 the completion of the project for the construction of fortifications and security systems on the Russian, Ukrainian boundary called “Wall”. This was reported in the State border service of the country.
“the project “the Wall” is scheduled to move for another four years and to be completed until 2025,” — said in the response of border guards at the request of the Ukrainian public organization StateWatch.
the “Wall” former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk introduced in 2014 as a line of fortifications on the border with Russia, stretching for two thousand kilometers. It was planned that the work will be completed in six months, but was extended first in 2018, then up to 2021.
as of the middle of 2019, according to the border guards, the works under the project have been performed only at 30%. Total expected cost of the project is 4.1 billion hryvnia (about $153 million at current exchange rates).
In March 2016 the investigators of the National anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has opened a criminal case on the fact of theft of 16.7 million hryvnia (about $623 thousand at current exchange rates) during the implementation of the project “the Wall”. In 2017, was arrested eight people suspected of involvement in the corruption scheme.
According to investigators, a number of officials of the Border service of Ukraine and representatives of the business overestimated the volume of work actually performed compared with the specified in the documents, and also attracted a fictitious company to withdraw funds allocated for the construction. In addition, the documents indicated work, which has never performed. Currently the case is pending before the Supreme court of Ukraine anti-corruption.
