The Department of Urban Development of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration plans to spend another 28.8 million hryvnias on the construction of an underground shelter on the territory of the Mykolaiv Regional Clinical Hospital. The notorious LLC «Antares-BUD» has already completed works worth 83.7 million hryvnias.

This is evidenced by data from the ProZorro public procurement system.

The tender states that there was a need to purchase additional works from the same participant as provided for in the main procurement contract concluded as a result of the tender. This is the company «Antares-Bud».

The task for the adjustment includes raising the level of the clean floor, arranging ventilation for the monolithic concrete shafts and performing additional work that was not included in the previous project. 28 million 892 thousand 408 hryvnias is to be spent on the works.

The construction of an underground shelter at the medical facility on Kyivska Street was approved in June 2024 during a session of the Mykolaiv Regional Council. The cost of the project is over UAH 98 million, of which the region received UAH 68.7 million as a subvention from the state.

According to the project, the construction of the building, which will house the operational unit, will require builders to go four metres into the ground. Last July, the company cut down more than 87 trees that fell into the construction zone.

So far, according to the ProZorro public procurement system, UAH 83 million 742 thousand 558 hryvnias has been spent on the construction of the shelter. It also cost 1 million hryvnias to adjust the project.

The shelter is being built by the scandalous Mykolaiv-based company «Antares-Bud». According to YouControl, the company is involved in 31 court cases and receives public orders worth millions of hryvnias. Most often, it was contracted by the Department of Urban Development and Capital Construction and the Capital Construction Department of Mykolaiv Regional State Administration. The company is owned by Volodymyr Tsutskarev and his daughter Yuliia Filipova. The company is currently involved in criminal proceedings — it is suspected of embezzling budget funds during the repair of the roof of Luparivska school in 2019.

It is also worth noting that «Antares-Bud» also won a tender for the reconstruction of the Mykolaiv Regional Children's Clinical Hospital worth almost half a billion hryvnias. The only competitor of «Antares-Bud» in the tender was the Kyiv-based company «Riola LTD». Both companies submitted the same offer — 596 437 066.78 hryvnias, exactly one penny above the minimum threshold.

According to the rules, if no one reduces the price, the first to submit the documents wins. It became known that Kyiv-based «Riola-Module LTD» uploaded their proposal on 9 April, while «Antares-Bud» uploaded theirs six minutes after the tender was announced, on 26 March. Moreover, one of their documents was dated a day earlier, with the amount of the security already specified.

In early 2023, a court ruled that «Antares-Bud» had been unreasonably selected as the contractor for the repair of the sports centre on the Namyv in Mykolaiv. The prosecutor's office said at the time that this prevented the embezzlement of more than 160 million hryvnias of budget funds.

«Antares-Bud» also repaired the roof of the Mykolaiv Regional Clinical Hospital. The work was supposed to be completed by the end of 2019, but as of early 2020, it had not been completed. As a result, the hospital was flooded during heavy rains in February 2020. Despite this, «Antares-Bud» was awarded a contract to repair the same hospital in the summer of the same year.

In 2016, the company was also awarded a contract for the construction of a trauma centre at the Emergency Medical Centre (which was hit by a Russian missile in the summer of 2022 and rebuilt a year later, — note). The process was notorious for the fact that the building could not be completed and put into operation for several years: the cost of the work increased every year. The emergency room was opened only in December 2019.

In addition, «Antares-Bud» repaired a ship and two fountains in the «Fairy Tale» children's playground. But later, cracks appeared on the front of the repaired ship, and letters from the inscriptions «Buyan» and «Mykolaiv» began to fall off. Tiles began to fall off two of the reconstructed fountains. The renovation of these facilities lasted almost four years, and the work cost over 7 million hryvnias. After that, the contractor began warranty repairs.

The case of embezzlement of millions at Mykolaiv Children's Hospital

According to «Anti-Corruption Dimension», in 2022, the NHSU transferred 38.2 million hryvnias to the hospital. At the same time, the actual number of treatment cases was only 86, so the cost should have been about 12 million hryvnias. More than 20 million hryvnias could have been misappropriated.

In 2023, the head physician of the regional children's hospital, Oleksandr Plitkin, was searched in a large-scale embezzlement case. According to the investigation, in 2022, hospital officials, together with representatives of the National Health Service, may have illegally received money intended for the treatment of newborns with severe complications.

During the trial, the Vitovskyi District Court denied the Mykolaiv Regional Children's Clinical Hospital's request to return the seized patient records. The documents were seized as part of an investigation into the alleged misappropriation or embezzlement of over 20 million hryvnias in budget funds.