Air Raid Alert: How Ukraine Procures Air Raid Warning System Upgrades on Prozorro

The air raid siren has become a sound of daily life for Ukrainians during the war. In 2025 alone, it sounded at least 19,033 times. People’s lives depend directly on how fast and reliably it works.

State spending on modernizing these systems has grown accordingly. In 2021, contracts for their repair totaled UAH 10 million. In the first year of full-scale war, that figure jumped to UAH 45 million; in 2023, to UAH 63 million; in 2024, to UAH 150 million. The peak came in 2025, when contracted amounts reached UAH 528 million. The surge reflects a Cabinet of Ministers decision launching a warning system modernization plan, which requires central executive bodies and regional administrations to implement it, while local governments may join on a voluntary basis.

In this piece, DOZORRO examines how warning systems were procured in Ukraine in 2025, what obstacles participants encountered, and how one suspicious company came to effectively dominate the market.

We selected procurements containing the phrase “centralized warning systems” and manually removed unrelated entries — such as fire alarm upgrades. Procurements by Ukrhydroenergo, covering reconstruction of early warning systems and centralized monitoring at hydroelectric facilities, were also excluded.

How much was contracted 

According to BI Prozorro public analytics module, procurements for warning system modernization announced in 2025 had a total estimated value of UAH 1.4 billion, with one additional procurement worth UAH 66 million still active. Actual contracted amounts total UAH 528 million. The gap is explained by the fact that 42% of competitive procurements by estimated value were unsuccessful or canceled, and another 5% are still ongoing. Of the 54% of procedures that resulted in signed contracts, 15% were subsequently terminated — in part following findings by the State Audit Service. Note that this article concerns contracted amounts, not funds actually disbursed.

By contract value, 90% of procurements were conducted through special open tenders; the remaining 10% were direct award contracts. According to BI Prozorro, successful warning system modernization tenders attracted an average of 1.3 bidders — pointing to a near-total absence of market competition.

The largest contracting volume in 2025 was recorded in Kyiv Region at UAH 139 million, followed by Cherkasy Region at UAH 124 million and Mykolaiv Region at UAH 89 million. Vinnytsia Region came in at UAH 51 million and Chernivtsi Region at UAH 45 million. Zakarpattia Region recorded the lowest procurement volume — approximately UAH 98,00

What the top regions have in common

In four of the five largest procurements, the winner of contracts to upgrade territorial automated warning systems was Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka LLC. The company is modernizing warning systems in Kyiv Region for UAH 133 million, in Cherkasy Region for UAH 120 million, in Mykolaiv Region for UAH 86 million, and in Vinnytsia for UAH 49 million. The only exception among the top five is Chernivtsi Region, where a UAH 44 million contract went to Meteor IT LLC. Notably, for both Kyiv and Cherkasy regions, the project documentation for the modernization was developed by Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka itself.

Project timelines vary: Kyiv Region is due to complete works by August 31, 2026; Cherkasy and Chernivtsi regions by end of 2027; Mykolaiv Region by October 31, 2026; and Vinnytsia by August 2027.

Beyond the notable differences in contract values, Kyiv and Cherkasy regions stand apart in another respect: their approach to contract publication. The Kyiv contracting authority did not publish the contract, citing a determination by the Civil Protection and Defense Department of the Kyiv Regional State Administration that the document constitutes restricted-access information whose disclosure could pose a threat to national security. In Cherkasy Region, the contract was initially withheld without any explanation, though it was eventually published as part of a contract amendment. Mykolaiv and Chernivtsi regions, as well as Vinnytsia, published their contracts promptly, finding no grounds for withholding them.

Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka and its likely ties to a fugitive MP

Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka LLC effectively dominates the centralized warning system modernization market. Total contracted value since 2023 stands at UAH 433 million, of which UAH 7.1 million covers project documentation development and revision. In addition to the contracts mentioned above, the company has been modernizing warning systems in the Kamianka and Lutsk communities since 2024. Its market share speaks for itself: in 2025, Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka accounted for 74% of the total value of all contracts for such services.  

The company is registered in Kyiv and serves as a distributor of Polish Digitex warning systems. It is owned by Oil and Gas Technologies LLC, whose ultimate beneficiary is listed as Oleksii Kolesnyk. Although the company was founded in 2010, its procurement success only began in the summer of 2023. Prior to the full-scale invasion, it held just three public contracts totaling approximately UAH 16,500.

The company’s sharp business growth coincided with a specific political moment. In 2023, MP Serhii Shakhov of the Dovira parliamentary group began publicly pushing the warning system modernization agenda. In late March 2023, the NABU announced Shakhov as a wanted person, charging him with submitting false asset declarations concealing over UAH 60 million. 

Around the same time, hromadske journalists published an investigation alleging that Shakhov had lobbied the government — including in letters to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal — to advance warning system upgrades in order to benefit his own company, which also had Russian ties.  The journalists suggested that Shakhov was promoting Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka through his adviser Mykola Sambozuk, who had previously run a similar business in Russia and, according to their reporting, obtained Russian citizenship in 2007.

DOZORRO analysts flagged the monopolization risk as early as 2023, noting at the time that the company had not yet gained significant traction with contracting authorities. As we can now see, that has changed — and the forecast proved accurate.

Excessive requirements in every tender 

A common thread running through the tenders won by Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka: not one was completed on the first attempt. Auditor interventions forced contracting authorities to cancel or annul procurements and re-announce them. The State Audit Service found irregularities in both tender documentation and bidders’ proposals. Notably, in nearly every announced procurement, potential participants raised questions about discriminatory requirements — with some submissions specifically mentioning Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka. This prompted DOZORRO analysts to examine the tender documentation across these projects.

The analysis revealed a systemic pattern: tender documentation containing conditions that restrict competition. In most cases, Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka was the only bidder — and the winner. 

Contracting authorities applied a set of requirements that created significant barriers to participation, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. Tenders in Kyiv, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, and Mykolaiv regions all required a special permit for working with state secrets.

A separate barrier involved strict conditions on equivalent equipment — applied by contracting authorities in Vinnytsia, Kyiv, and Chernivtsi. Bidders offering alternative equipment had to demonstrate full compliance with the project specifications, leaving virtually no margin for error. In practice, a simple comparison table — which contracting authorities did request — should have sufficed. But they additionally required guarantee letters or other supporting documents, making the conditions excessively burdensome. As a result, companies are effectively pushed to offer the exact equipment specified in the project documentation — often tied to a specific manufacturer — to avoid the risk of disqualification. This substantially narrows competition.

Among the excessive requirements was a mandatory package of seven ISO or DSTU certificates, including highly specific standards such as ISO 50001 (energy management) and ISO 41001 (facility management). This requirement was applied by contracting authorities in Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Mykolaiv. Several of these standards have no direct relevance to the installation of technical systems and appear to function as an additional filter that screens out participants without substantial resources.

Similar requirements recurred across the tender documentation of multiple regions — Kyiv, Cherkasy, Mykolaiv, and Chernivtsi, suggesting the use of coordinated approaches to documentation preparation. File metadata may point in the same direction: documents from Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Mykolaiv regions list “ThinkPad” as the file owner, which may indicate the use of a common template or preparation of documentation outside the respective regional organizers.

Other potentially discriminatory conditions also appeared. The Chernivtsi procuring entity required a site visit certificate bearing the contracting authority’s signature — without which submitting a bid was effectively impossible. In Vinnytsia, the contracting authority required authorization letters from equipment manufacturer Digitex, making participation contingent on the goodwill of a third party — the manufacturer or its official representative. The same contracting authority also required proof that measuring instruments — a megohmmeter, ground resistance meter, and multifunction electrical measuring device — were in working order and had been verified, supported by calibration certificates from authorized bodies such as the state enterprise Ukrmetrteststandart.  Companies were further required to demonstrate their right to conduct such measurements through a certificate of recognized measurement capabilities with appendices. While such documentation may indeed be necessary at the work execution stage, demanding it at the proposal submission stage is excessive and narrows the pool of potential participants.

Last year, Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka also attempted to enter the Zhytomyr Region market — without success. The contracting authority rejected its bid due to inaccuracies in resource documentation. DOZORRO analysts reviewed that tender and found no overt discriminatory requirements, with the exception of the state secrets permit requirement, which potentially narrows the field of participants.

Another large-scale tender is currently underway: the warning system upgrade in Kremenchuk. The Civil Protection and Defense Department of the Kremenchuk City Council plans to sign a UAH 61 million contract with Compass Engineering LLC, even though another participant offered to do the work at a lower price — a bid that was legitimately rejected for failing to meet the technical requirements of the tender documentation. Our analysis of that tender documentation found no discriminatory conditions.

Conclusion

The overall picture is troubling: the warning system modernization market is effectively consolidating around a single company — Ukrzaliznychavtomatyka LLC. Journalists flagged this risk back in 2023, and it now appears to be materializing. 

One contributing factor is the approach to tender documentation. Procuring entities have consistently written in complex and highly specific requirements — from extensive certificate packages to strict limitations on equivalent equipment and additional supporting documents. And crucially, these approaches recur across multiple regions. The result is competition that is largely formal: alternative suppliers have almost no real chance, and the winner is often predictable. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the same company frequently participates in developing the project documentation against which the works are subsequently tendered.

Taken together, this raises an uncomfortable but logical question: are we looking at a market that has organically consolidated around a strong player — or a system in which the conditions are being tailored to a specific company?

This material was prepared within the framework of the “Digitalization for Growth, Integrity, and Transparency” (UK DIGIT) project, implemented by the Eurasia Foundation and funded by UK Dev.

The material was produced with the financial support of the UK Government’s International Development Assistance Programme. The contents of this material are the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine; the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Government of the United Kingdom.