By Wings Phoenix, (Iurii Biriukov), army volunteer and Assistant Minister to the Minister of Defense
12.0.2014
Translated by Wings Phoenix Eng and edited by Voices of Ukraine, used with permission

At this moment, there will follow an extremely angry, biased post, full of bad language. Therefore, as one should, please keep your children away from our glowing monitors.

Once, ten days ago, I told you about a mystical number – 17.62 UAH. This is exactly the amount that our state allows [us] to spend on the food of our armed forces. Using the “flight” norm this amount was increased to 23.22 UAH and at this point for now (I hope) it stops. I am not counting the cost of delivering the “service” – this is separate money and a separate story.

And now – the field ration, “Daily norm of dry products (individual).” The state gives us 52.05 UAH for its financing and production. 52 UAH for food per day is both little… and fine. It all depends on how you do it. Although, really, it is not enough – after all the real cost of all the components inside is not 52 UAH, but 70! So, as with products used for feeding soldiers in the camps, the state from the very beginning forces the producers to save, to under-fill, to under-give. Oh, the poor suppliers! They were forced to steal from the stock, from the ration. Do you know how they do it? Would you like to know? Only please don’t eat now and don’t plan to eat for the next few hours!

The volunteer crew in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine took upon themselves a hellish task – studying the activity of the apparel and food provisioning services. They are heroes, fearless and goal-oriented. Their visit caused hysterics in the management of one of the enterprises, panic, threats, attempts at bribery – aaah, just the usual stuff.

What follows are some of the dry excerpts from the protocol of the inspection:

“…on the territory, signs of the presence of domestic animals (dogs?) were discovered…”

“…horned cattle are kept in an enclosure adjacent to where pigs are located…”

“…it is dirty in the manufactory sections, there is stagnant water on the floor with additives of blood and fat…”

“…At the entrance to the slaughter section there is a large quantity of half-carcasses of horned cattle and horses which were hanging mixed together…”

“…in the de-boning section, chilled bodies of unknown animals were found; the bodies did not bear any marks or identification. The employee of the de-boning section explained that these were the carcasses of pigs. This statement raises some doubts due to the fact that there was no fat at all found on the meat. Judging from a visual inspection, they were not similar to pig carcasses…”

“…Briquettes of meat of unknown origin were found on the floor. There were no markings on them which made it impossible to identify the type of meat as well as its origin…”

“…Wheat flour with an expired shelf life was found in the storage area for ready-to-use products…”

Our volunteers arrived to the tasting part in a half-bent over stage. And the saddest thing was still to come:

“…in the presence of a responsible representative and the head of the canned food section, two cans of meat food labelled “stewed beef, top grade” were opened. The contents completely do NOT correspond to the state approved norm DSTU 4450-2005

– meat pieces extracted from the can contained cartilage, with firm conjunctive tissue; the fluid was muddy, the smell and taste were those typical for stewed meat but without any sign of spices. After tasting, an unpleasant after-taste appeared in the mouth…”

Three pages of conclusions follow, with lots of terminology and DSTU [State Standards for Ukraine] norms. My eyes catch the sentence: “As of today it is impossible to stop the production of over 300,000 rations which have already been paid for… we consider it inappropriate to organize control of production on the premises of the enterprise since bribery attempts started immediately, followed later by direct threats…”

The inspection was carried out on November 26, in the morning, and on November 26 in the evening we got a paper in our hands that arrived to the MoD [Ministry of Defense] from the management of the enterprise:

“…I would like to inform you that the group of volunteers performed an unplanned inspection. There were no serious violations found… insignificant violations of sanitary norms were eliminated; the people responsible were punished following administrative procedures…”

Year after year these “businessmen” were pretending that they were feeding our soldiers. Year after year technical specifications and the wordings of tendering procedures were written for one producer. Year after year they were stealing from the army, from our boys. And now they even threaten us.

What can I say…À la guerre comme à la guerre

Source, translation: Wings Pheonix Eng
Original source: Iurii Biryukov (Wings Phoenix) FB