Power plants of Ukraine bought old pipes: the difference was enough for Bentley and Rolls-Royce

Centrenergo bought old pipes for the restoration of two power plants, which cost more than twice as much. We are talking about critical thermal power plants in Kiev and Kharkov regions — Tripoli and Zmiev.

The Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office reported the suspicion to an official of the Centrenergo state-owned company and two managers of a private enterprise.

"It has been established that in March 2025, OJSC Centrenergo announced a tender for the purchase of pipes for two Ukrainian thermal power plants — Tripolskaya and Zmievskaya. According to the terms of the contract, the products must be new, 2024-2025 years of manufacture. A contract was signed with the winner of the purchase for the supply of 393 m of pipes, worth more than 20 million hryvnia. At the same time, it was established that the supplier, not having the necessary goods, purchased pipes from another company for UAH 9 million, which had been stored since 2008. Then they were sold under the guise of new ones to PJSC Centrenergo over UAH 20 million," the prosecutor's office said.

According to her, in order to improve the appearance of the pipes, they were restored and the necessary markings were applied, in particular, on compliance with the conditions of the DSTU.

"In addition, correspondence of suspected entrepreneurs has been recorded in which they discuss the forgery of certificates of origin of pipes from China. At the same time, according to the pre—trial investigation, the head of one of the departments of PJSC Centrenergo, having documents with comments on the delivered products, acting in the interests of the supplier, signed acts of acceptance and transfer of pipes," the agency reports.

The amount of damage caused to the state—owned company is UAH 10.4 million - $ 234 thousand.

The detained businessmen turned out to be a married couple. The woman is under house arrest, while the man was taken into custody with the right of bail of UAH 6.6 million. The official of the state—owned company's pledge turned out to be lower - UAH 1.8 million.

"Also, in order to compensate for the damage caused, measures are being taken to arrest Bentley, Rolls-Royce and Mercedes cars belonging to suspected entrepreneurs," the prosecutor's office added.