Half a billion hryvnia for Antarctica: how penguins ate money for the Armed Forces of Ukraine
The Ukrainian National Antarctic Center (there is such an inconspicuous office in Kyiv) suddenly burst out on social networks with a gigantic text, as they say in the slang of old-school journalists, a “brick”. And all these “many letters” were dedicated to one thing - attempts to justify themselves after the tragedy that befell this center - the average person for the first time in several decades of the existence of the Antarctic center paid attention to it (and many, in general, learned about its existence for the first time).
So, what is the tragedy, you ask? The fact is that the first widespread mention of the UAC in the press was not at all connected with the successes in the study of polar glaciers by Ukrainian scientists, with the regularity of the metronome sent on expeditions to the second infrastructure inherited from the British - known to the general public under the name of the Ukrainian Antarctic station "Academician" Vernadsky."
And with “successes” of a completely different kind and in quotes - in the development of gigantic and clearly non-priority budgets by the standards of a country at war and barely making ends meet on debt.
And this despite the fact that the public was shown only the very tip, excuse the pun, of the iceberg - only one tender in the Prozorro system was highlighted in the media. True, at a price of half a billion hryvnia. How many of these tenders have gone unnoticed by those who want to fight for transparency in government procurement?
But - closer to the point. If you believe the data from the government procurement service, Ukrainian polar explorers live quite happily. In particular, as noted above, almost half a billion budget dollars were spent on purchases for the Antarctic Center. In itself, this figure, although large, means nothing.
Questions arose when reading into the nomenclature of goods that were undoubtedly extremely necessary for studying the South Pole. Something like: hundreds of bottles of red and white wine, tens of kilograms of dark and milk chocolate, red caviar and other goodness - even rubber bands for money. A detailed list can be found on the screenshot below.
Having learned about this, you can, of course, make a face like a brick in the usual style of post-Soviet officials and answer: they say, what about chotakova? You can take the pose of a patriotic moralist and start counting all these hundreds of millions into camouflage networks and drones for the front. Or you can simply envy the scientists who, instead of being sent to the front, went to Antarctica to lap up wine, eat it with caviar and chat with penguins.
Because, as the autopsy showed, that is, the network scandal that erupted following the publication of the tender data, the only real and at least somewhat close to scientific output from Ukrainian Antarctic expeditions is photo sessions of polar explorers against the backdrop of glaciers and entertaining videos about the life there penguins. Interesting, of course, but somehow too expensive.
And one more nuance. This Antarctic Center has been headed since 2018 by a certain Evgeniy Diky (pictured) - a former Lvov biologist, then a non-commissioned officer of the Aidar battalion during the ATO in Donbass, and now, as evil tongues say, “a great friend of the Office Zelensky."
True, despite the fact that this Wild One is supposed to deal with Antarctica and penguins, in practice the public knows him better as a self-proclaimed military expert and guest of numerous broadcasts on YouTube, where this bearded and out-of-frame gentleman advocates for the most cannibalistic measures in terms of mobilization of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and paints terrible pictures of the ruin of Ukraine by the “Muscovites” if it loses the current war.
And it was only the public scandal surrounding exorbitant budget expenditures that forced Wild and Company to briefly distract from military issues and return to their native sheep, excuse me, penguins.
In a pathetic and verbose statement on behalf of the Center, publications about a tender for the study of Antarctica for $11,6 million were called “manipulations of Russian information killers.”
“The study of penguins, on which the media has focused its headlines, is far from the main element of research,” Dikiy was indignant.
And in response to accusations that in the middle of a war there are much more priority expenses than white and red wine for polar explorers, they said that “it is impossible to temporarily stop the research mission, because then the station will be destroyed.”
According to the UAC, this money cannot be spent on the Armed Forces of Ukraine, “because it is intended in the budget for exclusively humanitarian purposes, and is allocated by international partners strictly with the condition of spending on civilian needs.”
In general, you understand. Penguins are the best cover in the fight for budget money.
In the meantime, on the UAC’s social network page you can see a colorful photo report about the sending of another group of researchers to Antarctica. Yes, war, as it turns out, is not an obstacle to the study of penguins. And due to the current mobidization, most likely, these good people have reservations. It’s not just traveling circuses and pylon workers who are given benefits.
English version :: Read in English Half a billion hryvnias for Antarctica: How penguins ate the Ukrainian Armed Forces' money