The National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) conducted a number of searches of suspects named in the investigative journalist story about corruption in Ukraine's defense production sector. They included searches at the residences of ex-First Deputy Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleh Hladkovsky and his son Ihor, NABU Director Artem Sytnyk has said.

"Based on what we saw in stories of the investigative journalists, we opened two cases. In connection with one of them today we conducted about 20 searches, including the residences of Ihor and Oleh Hladkovsky, Vitaliy Zhukov, Andriy Rohoza and others," Sytnyk said during a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.

As reported, in a video uploaded to the Internet on February 25, investigative journalists from Bihus.info said during 2018 they received an anonymous letter with an electronic archive of correspondence between participants in corrupt deals to supply spare parts to the Ukraine's state-run Ukroboronprom concern. The journalists checked the information and concluded the leaked information was genuine.

The third series of journalists' probe was aired by the Nashi Groshi program on March 4. It presented materials alleging Oleh Hladkovsky and ex-head of the state-run Ukrspecexport Pavlo Bukin were allegedly paid at least $30,000 and $10,000, respectively, when purchasing Russian-made altimeters for repairing Kazakhstan's An-26 planes in Ukraine.

According to the journalists, in 2016-2017, the devices whose actual cost was about $85,000, through the mediation of Hladkovsky's son, Ihor Hladkovsky, and the latter's business partner Vitaliy Zhukov, were delivered to Ukraine through the UAE under the guise of spare parts for a civilian helicopter and sold to Ukroboronprom's Ukrspecexport, which was headed by Bukin at that time, for about $580,000.

The journalists said that Oleh Hladkovsky and Bukin had declined to comment on the facts. What is more, Oleh Hladkovsky denied he knew Zhukov.