Investigators of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) have detained Trade Commodity investor Volodymyr Trofymenko, the Ukrainska Pravda online news site has reported, with reference to the company's press service.

According to the report, Trofymenko was delivered to NABU on Surikova Street in Kyiv on Monday, October 16.

"Trofymenko was detained almost immediately after his joint press conference with another Trade Commodity investor, Andriy Adamovsky, which was held on Monday morning," the report says.

Adamovsky said at the press conference that he was an investor of Trade Commodity, but not a shareholder.

"I want to say that neither I nor Mr. Volodymyr Trofymenko are shareholders of Trade Commodity. We are simply investors, but we finance various projects," he said.

Adamovsky said that all actions by the company's management were legal.

The businessman also denied MP Oleksandr Hranovsky's connection with Trade Commodity.

A defense lawyer for Trade Commodity, former Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko, in turn, said at the press conference that his clients had not violated anything during the purchase of fuel by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

"The law allows the parties to enter into additional agreements in case of fluctuations in the price of products on the market. Moreover, the agreement with the specification of prices was signed by both the company and the Defense Ministry," Kasko said.

As reported, on October 11, NABU detectives, under the procedural leadership of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), detained a deputy defense minister and the director of the department of state procurement and supply of material resources of the Defense Ministry on suspicion of involvement in embezzling over UAH 149 million in state funds during the purchase of fuel for the ministry. NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors conducted a series of searches and detained two officials.

According to investigators, in early 2016, the Defense Ministry's tender committee organized an open bidding procedure for the purchase of liquid fuel. Following the trade on April 26, 2016, the committee on 14 lots approved for payment the proposals of one of the bidders as most economically profitable. On May 13 and May 18, 2016, the Defense Ministry and the winner of the bidding signed 14 contracts for the supply of fuel for special purpose vehicles at the expense of the state budget for a total of over UAH 1 billion.

A source told Interfax-Ukraine that Deputy Defense Minister Ihor Pavlovsky "who was engaged in procuring resources" was detained on October 11. The second detainee was not named, however, Hromadske TV, referring to its sources, said the issue concerned the director of the Defense Ministry's department of state procurement, Volodymyr Hulevych.

On October 12, two more Defense Ministry officials were notified of suspicion in the embezzlement of state funds – an employee of a unit of the department of state procurement and supply of material resources and an employee of the internal audit department of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

Kyiv's Solomiansky District Court chose a measure of restraint for Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ihor Pavlovsky and Director of the Defense Ministry's Department of State Procurement Volodymyr Hulevych in the form of round-the-clock house arrest.

Bloc of Petro Poroshenko MP Serhiy Leschenko, in turn, wrote on his Facebook page that the detentions in the Defense Ministry and the criminal case were connected with the Trade Commodity company.