Due to improper quality, 24,000 mines or 1% of produced ones subject to return - Smetanin

Due to improper quality, 24,000 120-mm mines or 1% of the products produced this year are subject to return.

This was announced by the Minister for Strategic Industries Herman Smetanin on the Telegram channel, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"The working group worked during November 11-15 and came to the conclusion that there is indeed an abnormal operation of several components of the product. As a result, some of the shots turned out to be of improper quality. To date, out of the batches with a total number of 54,000 mines, which were suspected of abnormal operation, about 24,000 mines are subject to return, which is less than 1% of the products produced this year," he said.

Smetanin said that on November 20, one of the manufacturing plants received a complaint from the Logistics Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine about 120-mm mines, at the same time, in working order, mines from the latest batches were being re-inspected.

On November 8, the Ministry of Strategic Industry issued an order to conduct an inspection, involving officials from the Ministry of Strategic Industry, the Ministry of Defense, the manufacturing plant, the Central Scientific Research Institute of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the Security Service of Ukraine.

Smetanin reported that, in accordance with the commission's work report, a poor-quality batch of 120-mm mines is being replaced, and manufacturing plants are strengthening product quality control at all stages of production, starting with the receipt of purchased components.

"Today, the Ministry of Defense, in accordance with the established procedure, withdraws products from the specified batch, and the manufacturing plant replaces them with high-quality samples," he noted.

Smetanin stressed that all Ukrainian defense industry enterprises continue to operate as usual: to manufacture and supply high-quality weapons and military equipment to the Defense Forces.

He added that the situation surrounding low-quality mines has also become an additional incentive for all manufacturers to be more careful about quality control of their products at all stages of production.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on November 26, the Ministry of Defense announced that it was investigating the causes of the abnormal operation of 120-millimeter mines, suspended the use of the specified batches of ammunition in the Defense Forces, as well as their issuance to combat units until the causes of the abnormal operation are established. The batch of ammunition supplied has been withdrawn for further research, and imported mines will be supplied instead.

At the same time, the Ministry of Defense emphasized that it is the customer of the specified type of weapons for the Defense Forces, while the executor of the state order is the Ministry for Strategic Industries.

The servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine received a low-quality batch of 120 mm mortar mines produced by Ukroboronprom, which do not explode. The mortarman suggests that the reason is low-quality TNT inside the mines.