The case involving son was artificially compiled from false provocative facts, Ukraine's First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine Oleh Hladkovsky has said. Hladkovsky has been suspended from his position at NSDC.

"Ukraine is a legal state. The case in which my son is involved, which, obviously, was artificially compiled from false provocative facts and sold for 30 pieces of silver, is being used in the election campaign. My opponents, I see, are not interested in the impartial investigation of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). They have attracted radical organizations to street actions and send them to attack my son's house," Hladkovsky said, commenting on the action of nationalist organizations in front of his son's house.

Oleh Hladkovsky said outcome of such actions would be only a "picture" for media. He said his son, Ihor Hladkovsky, will fully cooperate with the investigation.

"I wrote a letter of dismissal at the time of the investigation, and my son cooperates fully with law enforcement agencies to investigate the information made public. We ask to stop the pressure on our family and the investigation. We support maximum transparency of this matter for society, parliamentary and international control," Oleh Hladkovsky said.

Representatives of National Druzhina (volunteer squad), affiliated with the nationalist National Corps Party headed by Andriy Biletsky, gathered over the weekend in front of Ihor Hladkovsky's house outside Kyiv.

As earlier reported, Ihor Hladkovsky, together with two accomplices, through fictitious firms, reportedly delivered contraband Russian spare parts or parts from Ukrainian military units to Ukrainian defense enterprises at prices inflated two to four times higher than the purchase price, journalists from the Kyiv-based Bihus.info said.

In a video uploaded to the Internet on February 25, investigative journalists from Nashi Groshi said during 2018 they received an anonymous letter with an electronic archive of correspondence between participants in the deals. The journalists checked the information and concluded the leaked information was genuine.

The journalists said the amount of embezzled funds totals at least UAH 250 million, perhaps double that amount.

The investigative journalists say that Oleh Hladkovsky, who formerly was a business partner of incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, the ex-head of Ukrspecexport and head of Ukroboronprom Pavlo Bukin, as well as directors and other officials of the state-owned defense concern were involved.

The investigation says the suspect deals were organized using three main fictitious firms, and that one of them included the Kuznya on Rybalsky Shipbuilding Plant, which was then owned by Poroshenko.

President Poroshenko instructed law enforcement agencies to urgently verify the information made public by the Nashi Groshi program.

On February 27, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) informed that the detectives of the Bureau had entered the information in the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations and started a pretrial investigation on the grounds of misappropriation, waste of property or seizing it by abusing their official position based on the analysis of information set out in the journalistic investigation of corruption in the defense sector.