Criminal proceedings against thermal imaging manufacturer Archer closed - NABU

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has said that criminal proceedings against Archer are over.

"According to the results of the investigation, not enough evidence was collected that would indicate that the actions of officials of the Ministry of Defense and Archer constituted a criminal offense," the message on the Telegram channel said on Monday.

As noted, the grounds for initiating the investigation were the materials of the financial monitoring of one of the European Union countries. After a full investigation of all the circumstances of the procurement, a lawful decision was made.

"Initial assessments do not always lead to the establishment of a crime or prosecution. At the same time, such cases become the basis for improving work and internal procedures," the NABU noted.

At the end of April this year, the founder of Archer, Oleksandr Yaremenko, reported on the visit of the NABU investigator with a search warrant dated May 2024 to the evacuated Archer LPP enterprise in the Czech Republic, which performs direct state military contracts for Ukraine.

Yaremenko recalled that under the 2022 contracts, Archer shipped 5,700 devices to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the National Guard, which are now successfully operating at the front, and the funds have been blocked.

"Some talented NABU investigators, fulfilling orders from the American companies FLIR and ATN to destroy a Ukrainian competitor manufacturer, have been blocking the production of Archer military devices for almost three years," he noted.

Yaremenko recalled that the company has already fulfilled more than 200 military contracts since 2014, which is more than 20,000 devices, and "did not take a single hryvnia for development or repairs from the country's budget."

Later, People's Deputy, Head of the Parliamentary Temporary Special Commission on the Protection of Investors' Rights Halyna Yanchenko reported that the commission is studying in detail the situation regarding the NABU's seizure of the accounts of the only Ukrainian manufacturer of night vision devices that are purchased by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Founded in 2010, the company Thermal Vision Technologies (Kyiv, TM "Archer"), according to opendatabot, in 2024 increased its loss by 2.3 times compared to 2023 - to UAH 26.15 million, while net income fell almost fivefold - to UAH 583.3 million.