Odesa OMA refuses to disclose fortification expenses to Nikcenter

The Odesa Oblast Military Administration (OMA) refused to tell Mykolaiv-based investigative journalism center Nikcenter how much money from national and local budgets had been spent on fortification construction in the oblast, the news outlet reports.

The journalists submitted a query to the Odesa Military Administration to learn how much money has been allocated for the construction of fortifications in the oblast in the entire full-scale war period. The team sought to show that the fortification of the area and defense efforts in Odesa oblast have been ongoing since 2022 and are not related to fake reports of Russia’s plans to encircle Odessa.

The team did not ask for the exact location of the fortifications, their coordinates, technical characteristics, maps, or other data that could undermine the state’s security or defense capabilities if reported. Nikcenter stressed that disclosing the fortification expenditures would facilitate public oversight of budget spending, preventing possible embezzlement and corruption risks, and the government’s accountability.

Still, the Odesa OMA refused to disclose the requested information, calling it “classified expenses”. The administration claimed that the decision to restrict access to these data met the requirements set out in the law, citing national security, territorial integrity, and public order concerns.

Volodymyr Zelenchuk, a lawyer at the Institute of Mass Information, believes that the Odesa OMA erroneously equated funding for fortification construction with funding for the organising and management of defense efforts. He called the refusal unlawful.

This is not the first time that Nikcenter has faced denial of access to information by the Odesa OMA. Previously, the administration refused to disclose the sums spent on the top officials’ and staff’s business trips abroad taken during the martial law period to Nikcenter journalists.

Earlier, the Odesa OMA refused to share the list of persons who were nominated for state awards during the war with Nikcenter journalists, calling the news outlet’s queries “paperwork terrorism.”