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December was a month of high customer activity on Prozorro. In the deoccupied Kherson region, 299 procurements were announced, of which 207 took place for a total amount of UAH 148,961,467.22, and 92 procurements did not take place.
A notable feature of December was the increase in electricity purchases. This is partly explained by the traditional end-of-year renegotiation of contracts for a new budget period or covering transitional needs. At the same time, the context of energy instability also significantly affected the structure of purchases. Constant shelling and damage to energy infrastructure do not allow for guaranteeing an uninterrupted power supply; however, the presence of a valid contract remains a necessary condition for restoring supply after network repair and avoiding additional organizational and financial complications.
As a result, the energy segment formed the financial “core” of December procurements in the Kherson region. The total number of successful procedures for electricity purchases amounted to UAH 88,723,911.79, which is about 59.6% of the total value of contracts concluded for the month. Given this concentration of funds, we have included the analysis of electricity purchases in a separate analytical report.
It should be noted that this report analyzes only procedures carried out through the electronic system Prozorro. Direct contracts not entered into through the system were not included in the calculations.
Details by sector
- Educational institutions conducted 12 purchases for UAH 4,204,393.95.
- Healthcare institutions (municipal / city / regional / state) conducted 82 purchases for UAH 65,188,313.23.
- Military units, police, and courts conducted 24 purchases for UAH 10,190,530.65.
- Municipal enterprises conducted 31 purchases for UAH 7,597,565.49.
- Village councils conducted 20 purchases for UAH 16,122,303.06 (excluding solar stations for Chornobaivka).
- Administrations (city, regional, departments) conducted 34 purchases for UAH 37,494,472.05 (lots of the Department of Education are taken into account as separate purchases).
- State Emergency Service of Ukraine conducted 3 purchases for UAH 916,591.20.
- Social sphere (Pension Fund, employment centers) conducted 15 purchases for UAH 7,247,297.59.
What was interesting that we saw?
During our analysis of December’s procurements, we paid attention not only to individual amounts or contractors, but also to characteristic approaches that are repeated across different customers and sectors — from alternative energy and humanitarian logistics to transport, printing, and maintenance.
These include procedures with minimal or no competition, proposals submitted without price reduction, and situations where the key economic logic of the procurement becomes clear after the contract is concluded, not at the bidding stage.
We have collected these moments in this section to show what typical procurement scenarios in the frontline region look like in practice.
Solar power plant for the Chornobaivka community
In December, the Chornobaivka village council announced the purchase of a solar power plant three times (UA-2025-12-24-005259-a, UA-2025-12-24-004628-a, UA-2025-12-24-004045-a) with different expected costs, ranging from UAH 648 thousand to UAH 1.125 million. Only one participant, individual entrepreneur "Soboleva Tetiana Vadymivna", participated in all three procedures, and in all cases her proposals were rejected for the same reason: non-compliance with the conditions of the technical specification, which cannot be eliminated within the framework of paragraph 43 of the Features.
It is worth noting separately that payment under the contract in these procurements was provided for at the expense of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) with 100% post-payment within 30 calendar days after delivery, i.e., the local government body acts as the organizer of the procedure, and the financing is provided by an international donor.
We analyzed all three tender announcements, three justifications of the expected cost, and three tender offers of the rejected participant.
The analysis of the justifications showed that each of these documents actually considers each procurement separately. They describe in detail the equipment's composition, the principle of its operation, the list of works, and regulatory requirements, but these descriptions are not integrated into a single, cohesive logic for forming the procurement as a whole. At the same time, none of the justifications explains in a simple and understandable way why the cost changes across different procurements. There is no summary table that shows exactly what is added or removed, which elements affect the price increase or decrease, and how these changes determine the final amount. As a result, each figure appears justified separately, but they are not interconnected, which complicates external control and prevents us from understanding the logic of value formation in dynamics.
Three proposals submitted by the individual entrepreneur "Soboleva Tetiana Vadymivna" were analyzed separately. Formally, the document packages looked complete (certificates on the material and technical base, personnel, experience, price offers, correspondence tables); however, the key problem was not the number of files, but their content. The technical part of the proposals was filled out too generally: the specifications indicated the subject of the procurement (“solar power plant”), but without specific technical characteristics, equipment configuration, and parameters required by the tender documentation. As a result, the customer did not receive confirmation that the proposed solution met the procurement requirements, and this discrepancy could not be corrected as a formal error. It is for this reason that all three proposals were rejected under paragraph 44 of the Features, as they did not meet the requirements of the tender documentation.
The individual entrepreneur "Soboleva Tetiana Vadymivna" was registered in April 2024 in Kherson, and her participation in these three procedures is her first attempt to participate in public procurement. According to available data from the YouControl analytical system, the entrepreneur has not previously had successful contracts in the Prozorro system.
Repair and maintenance of a MERCEDES-BENZ VITO car
The customer was the Executive Committee of the Kherson City Council. The expected purchase cost was UAH 47,680.00. And the contract was concluded for this amount. The only participant and at the same time the winner of the procedure was Autocenter "Ampir" LLC, with whom the contract was signed without reducing the price from the expected cost: UA-2025-12-09-006538-a
The subject of the procurement is formulated as a set of services for maintenance and current repair of one car until the end of 2025. The tender announcement lists specific types of work (periodic maintenance, replacement of bushings, ball joints, suspension elements, repair and balancing of the driveshaft, adjustment of camber-toe, etc.); however, each position is defined as "one service" without disclosing quantitative and technical parameters. The services are provided at the contractor's location in the city of Kherson, and payment is 100% post-payment within 7 working days after signing the acceptance and transfer certificates.
Both the tender announcement and the contract lack detailed information on the composition and scope of services: the list of spare parts, their quantities, origins, and the cost of each operation, as well as labor-intensity standards, are not specified. The “one service” format for each type of work does not allow correlating the price of the contract with the actual volume of repairs performed. There are also no clear criteria for the quality of work and the result (technical parameters, warranty conditions, requirements for recording the work performed), which reduces control mainly to the formal signing of certificates.
The procurement looks procedurally correct and does not exceed a small amount, but is built on the simplest model: one participant, no price reduction, a wide list of works without quantitative or cost details. In this format, the main risks to transparency arise not at the procedural stage, but during contract execution. It is important to check what work was actually performed, whether their actual volume corresponds to the amount of UAH 47,680, and whether the repair content is not replaced by the formal closure of "services" under the acts.
Autocenter "Ampir" LLC has been actively participating in public procurement since 2024. During this period, the company won contracts for UAH 5,365,626, of which UAH 3,865,152 fell in 2025. Among the customers are the Kherson City Military Administration, the municipal enterprise "Ecopolis" of the Kherson City Council, the Department of Infrastructure of the Kherson Regional State Administration, Kherson Teplomagistral JSC, the Department of the State Migration Service in the Kherson Region, the Main Department of the State Emergency Service in the Kherson Region, and others.
Procurement is carried out both through the electronic system and without its use. In particular, as the publication MOST wrote, the Kherson City Military Administration concluded a direct contract with Autocenter "Ampir" LLC for the repair of a Hyundai Terracan SUV for the amount of UAH 63,178 from the local budget, which provided for the replacement of shock absorbers, brake pads, handbrake cables, repair of the starter and wiring, while the most expensive item was an engine mount worth over UAH 10,000 including installation.
According to the YouControl analytical system, Autocenter "Ampir" LLC was established in 2023. The company is registered in Kherson and is owned by Yevgenii Nazarov and Oleksandr Kuzmin. Yevgenii Nazarov is also registered as an individual entrepreneur, participates separately in tenders and is at the same time the head of the company. The founders of the company include the Turkish legal entity AT “Seta Tarim Urunleri Anonim Sirketi” and Turkish citizen Mustafa Tunç Çögendez, who, according to open data, is associated with a number of businesses, in particular with the grain processing enterprise “Zerno Tavrii”, which is currently located in the temporarily occupied territory.
Printing services worth UAH 2.8 million
The Territorial Department of the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine in the Kherson region ordered printing services worth UAH 2,856,412.50 in December 2025. The procurement concerns the placement of announcements and other official information of the local general courts of the Kherson region in a printed publication. This is not about printing as such, but about the publication of information and notification materials that must be made public to citizens by law: UA-2025-12-09-022679-a
One participant took part in the procedure - the State Enterprise Newspaper Office Uryadovyy Kurier, which submitted a price offer for the entire expected purchase amount. There was no competitive auction, and the contract was concluded at a price that fully reflects the expected value. This format of participation is typical for procurements related to official printed publications, but it also automatically limits the possibility of price competition.
Analysis of the price offer shows that the cost of services is determined by a tariff grid based on the area of publication in the newspaper: from small formats (1/32 of a column) to a full column. The document provides detailed information on the size of the publications in square centimeters, the number of placements, and the price per unit with VAT, which together form the total cost of the contract of UAH 2.86 million. At the same time, the offer does not explain why such volumes of publications were chosen, how they correlate with the courts' real needs, or whether it is possible to adjust the number of advertisements in the event of a change in the load.
It is important to consider that the lack of competition in this procurement could potentially be due to the peculiarities of the legal regulation of the publication of judicial information. The current legislation provides for the publication of court decisions and advertisements in printed publications. In particular, the Law of Ukraine “On Access to Court Decisions” allows the publication of court decisions in both electronic and printed form, and the Law of Ukraine “On Information” provides that information of state authorities may be made available to the public through printed official publications or other channels. At the same time, these norms do not establish a strict requirement to use a single printed publication as the only possible publication method. The procurement materials do not contain a direct reference to a law or by-law that would clearly justify the impossibility of using alternative formats or other printed publications. This circumstance requires additional clarification within the framework of monitoring, but in itself is not automatic evidence of violations.
Humanitarian logistics in Kherson
In December 2025, the Kherson City Military Administration of the Kherson district of the Kherson region ordered a set of services related to the maintenance of commodity and material values, humanitarian and charitable aid for the amount of UAH 1,068,396: UA-2025-12-12-020250-a
We have already recorded similar purchases in terms of subject matter and cost in previous reports, in particular in September, where the expected amount was identical. One participant, LDK LLC, participated in the procedure and submitted a proposal for the full expected cost, without a price reduction.
Analysis of the submitted proposal shows that the specification is based on large quantitative indicators but does not explain the cost of each individual service. The table lists tens of thousands of operations — cargo storage, acceptance, loading, cross-docking, manual work — but in the “price per unit” column, there is a dash in all positions. As a result, only the total amount of the contract is visible, and there is no understanding of which part of the services accounts for the main cost or where the key costs are concentrated.
At the same time, an analysis of the concluded contract shows that, at the time of its conclusion, the price structure was nevertheless disclosed: the specification lists specific services, including the quantity, the price per unit excluding VAT, the amount of VAT, and the final cost. The document shows that the bulk of the cost is accounted for by the cargo storage service (over 118 thousand units), while other operations — acceptance, loading, cross-docking, packaging, and manual work — have a much smaller share of the total contract cost.
The key point is that the economic logic of pricing becomes clear only after the contract is signed, and not at the stage of evaluating tender offers. This complicates comparisons within the procedure and significantly reduces the possibility of external control at the moment of deciding the winner.
A comparison of procurements by the Kherson City Military Administration in September and December 2025 indicates a stable model: a fixed total contract amount (UAH 1,068,396), no competition, a variable quantitative indicator, and disclosure of the price structure only at the contract stage. In itself, such an approach is not direct evidence of violations, but it limits transparency in the procedures and requires greater attention from financial control bodies, given the significant amounts of budget funds directed to humanitarian logistics through a single supplier.
Internet for educational institutions for UAH 250 thousand
In December 2025, the Education Department of the Kherson City Council announced the purchase of Internet services for a total amount of UAH 258,963.00. The purchase was conducted as open bidding and was divided into 20 separate lots, each of which concerns the connection and maintenance of a separate educational institution - a lyceum, a gymnasium, a school, or a preschool educational institution: UA-2025-12-17-023965-a
Such a scale of fragmentation of the procurement subject is atypical: within one procedure, the customer actually conducted 20 parallel mini-procurements, with the expected cost of each lot ranging from UAH 3.5 thousand to UAH 16 thousand. The most expensive are, in particular, lots priced UAH 16,000, UAH 14,999, UAH 13,000, and UAH 12,000, while some of the other lots are valued less than UAH 5,000. This approach formally complies with the legislation, but significantly complicates the general perception of the procurement as a single complex, and dilutes competition among potential participants.
From a competitive perspective, the results look uneven. Two lots (Nos. 10 and 19) were held without competition, with only one participant, indicating no price reduction. Lot No. 17 was generally unsuccessful, since no participant applied for it. At the same time, competition for other lots was either formal or limited, which is typical of local Internet service markets, including in the frontline region.
In general, this procurement appears atypical for the Kherson region due to the division of a single procurement item into 20 separate lots. Formally, this may indicate the customer's attempt to take into account the individual needs of each educational institution. At the same time, this approach disaggregates procurement into small parts and complicates a holistic understanding of how much the community as a whole spends on Internet services and how their costs are formed.
Monitoring and maintenance of the shelter door opening system
The Civil Protection Department of the Kherson City Council ordered services to monitor the condition and maintenance of the automated door-opening system, with an expected cost of UAH 1,056,000. The procurement was carried out through an open tender procedure, with one participant participating - the Security Police Department in the Kherson region, which was determined as the winner. The contract was concluded at a price that fully corresponds to the expected cost, without price reduction: UA-2025-12-19-004454-a
From the tender offer and contract analysis, it is clear that the procurement covers round-the-clock monitoring and maintenance of automated door-opening systems for funds of civil protection protective structures (shelters) in the city. The basic calculation model is unified: a fixed monthly service cost is set for each facility (mostly UAH 400 per month), and the total amount is determined by the number of facilities and the term of service provision in 2025. The annexes to the contract provide a detailed list of shelter addresses, service periods, and the cost for each facility, allowing you to track the arithmetic of the final price formation.
From a monitoring perspective, this procurement was conducted without competition and on a fixed-price basis, which is typical for services provided by state specialized institutions. At the same time, attention should be focused not on the procedure, but on the implementation of the contract — in particular, whether the services are actually provided in the volumes declared for each facility and whether the systems are regularly monitored and maintained, as provided for in the contract.
Transportation of children for recreation and health improvement
In December 2025, the Children's Service of the Kherson City Council conducted a procurement for transportation services for children of the Kherson urban territorial community, accompanied by accompanying persons, for recreation and health improvement. The expected cost of the procurement was UAH 1,518,000 and was divided into two lots: UA-2025-12-10-002202-a-a1
Lot No. 1 - transportation of children on the routes Kherson - Mykolaiv - Odesa. One participant took part, the individual entrepreneur Prysyazhny Artem Anatoliyovych, who became the winner. The cost of the concluded contract was UAH 1,399,811.76.
This contractor has already appeared in our previous monitoring: in the November 2024 report, we mentioned the purchase by the Children's Service of services for the evacuation of children to Odessa from the individual entrepreneur Prysyazhny Artem Anatoliyovych for UAH 283,880.40.
Analysis of the contract shows that the subject of the purchase and the terms of service are spelled out in sufficient detail. 72 transportation services are provided along a specified route with a total length of about 500 km, with a clearly established service period from January 1 to December 31, 2026, at the customer's request. The contract separately sets out requirements for the technical condition of the transport, driver qualifications, mandatory pre-trip and post-trip inspections, passenger insurance, and compliance with legislation in the field of passenger transportation, which is critically important given the transportation of children.
The financial part of the contract is also disclosed: the specification determines the price of one service — UAH 19,441.83 — and the calculation provides the cost structure (fuel, driver wages, depreciation, daily, and general production costs). This allows us to trace the logic of price formation and correlate the total amount of the contract with the volume of planned transportation.
Lot No. 2 did not take place — no participant submitted a proposal. It provided for the transportation of children on the Kolomyia-Kosiv route.
The procurement generally appears procedurally correct: the contract terms are detailed, safety requirements are prescribed, and pricing is supported by calculations. At the same time, the key point remains the lack of competition for the main lot, as well as the fact that the second lot did not take place at all. This limits the ability to compare price offers and makes further control over the actual volume of services provided and their compliance with the terms of the contract especially important.
Another procurement of services for the transportation of organized groups of children with accompanying persons was carried out by the Infrastructure Department of the Kherson Regional State Administration. The expected procurement cost was UAH 600,000. One participant took part in the procedure — the individual entrepreneur Demchuk Oleksandr Anatoliyovych, who submitted a tender proposal: UA-2025-12-22-014257-a
The individual entrepreneur Demchuk Oleksandr Anatoliyovych was registered in the city of Kherson on May 24, 2005. According to the YouControl analytical system, the entrepreneur has a high level of trust “A”, and does not appear in journalistic investigations, court cases, or public scandals. No reputational reservations were identified regarding the participant.
The tender proposal submitted by him formally meets the requirements for documentation: certificates, confirmation of transport availability, documents confirming compliance with legislation, and experience in performing similar contracts were provided. At the same time, the proposal does not include a detailed cost breakdown for services. The participant indicates only the total amount, without calculating the price per flight, per kilometer, or per trip, or the costs. In fact, at the stage of evaluating the proposal, it is impossible to determine which components the price is based on or which transportation volumes are included in the cost of UAH 600,000.
Documents confirming the participant’s similar experience were analyzed separately. Individual entrepreneur Demchuk provided a certificate listing of executed contracts, a contract, a certificate of acceptance of the work performed, and a positive review from the international organization Project HOPE. These documents show that the contractor has already carried out irregular passenger transportation, in particular on the route Kherson-Mykolaiv-Kherson. The previous contract fixed a specific price - 16,000 UAH for two flights, which gives a general idea of the order of prices for such services. At the same time, this experience does not directly correlate with the current procurement, as the new proposal does not include data on the number of flights, their duration, or frequency.
Overall, the procurement appears procedurally correct in terms of formal documentation and confirmation of the contractor's experience. At the same time, the key issue remains the lack of transparency of the economic part of the proposal: the logic of price formation is not disclosed at the bidding stage and becomes clear only indirectly through the analysis of previous contracts. For a procurement involving the transportation of organized groups of children, this aspect requires increased attention at the contract execution stage and in controlling the actual volumes and costs of the services provided.
Conclusions
December monitoring shows that public procurement in the Kherson region formally takes place within the framework of procedures, but in practice it has common features: limited or formal competition, no price reductions, and disclosure of the economic rationale of procurement after contract conclusion. The largest financial volume of the month was formed by electricity procurement, where, despite the large number of suppliers, funds are concentrated in a narrow circle of companies, which increases the risks of customers' dependence on dominant market players.
In other sectors - from humanitarian logistics and transport to technical maintenance and services for education - key risks are also concentrated not so much at the bidding stage, but during contract execution. That is why systematic public monitoring remains critically important: it allows not only to record individual cases, but also to identify recurring procurement scenarios and respond in a timely manner to the risks posed by the non-transparent use of budget funds in the frontline region.
In terms of sectors, the largest amounts were allocated to healthcare, administrations, village councils, and the security/law and order/courts unit. But regardless of the sector, the most common question is not “whether the procedure was carried out correctly,” but how thoroughly the result and price will be checked after the contract is concluded. This is where the main risk for the frontline region lies: when competition is limited, and specifications and calculations are simplified, the control system relies on the quality of the implementation documentation — and this quality must be impeccable.
Download the interactive report at the link.
That is why we have developed a simple, accessible instruction for residents that helps everyone get involved in monitoring public procurement in their community. It does not require special knowledge or experience: the proposed steps are easy to follow and, at the same time, have a real impact on procurement transparency and strengthen public control in the frontline Kherson region.
This material has been produced with the support of the European Endowment for Democracy (EED). Its contents do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of EED. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this publication lies entirely with the author(s).
