SSU, SBI and National Police dismantle 11 draft-evasion schemes in various regions of Ukraine: 23 people have been detained. PHOTOS
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), and the National Police dismantled 11 new draft-evasion schemes. As a result of coordinated operations across several regions, 23 organizers were detained.
For fees ranging from $2,500 to $17,000, the racketeers offered to dodge conscription using forged documents or helped men escaped abroad outside official border checkpoints, Censor.NET reports.
In Kyiv, two residents were detained for selling "military exemption" to draft-eligible men. For a fee, they placed clients at critical-infrastructure enterprises and then arranged their departure from Ukraine under the guise of a "business trip."
In Poltava region, law enforcement shut down three schemes. Those detained include two lawyers with accomplices and a local dealer who had draft dodgers removed from wanted lists at territorial recruitment centers (TCR) and helped them be struck off the military register using bogus medical diagnoses. The scheme relied on accomplices among doctors and enlistment-office officials.
In Ivano-Frankivsk region, six locals were exposed for organizing the escape of draft-eligible men to the EU via a border park area. Half of the suspects worked for the administration of a Ukrainian nature reserve. Case files say the fixers drove the "tourists" to the frontier and then guided them into a neighboring EU country along mountain trails.
In Cherkasy region, a university deputy dean was exposed for taking bribes to enroll draft dodgers at her institution. According to the case materials, she made nearly half a million hryvnias from the scheme this year.
Also in the region, the head of a local branch of the Fund for Social Protection of Persons with Disabilities was detained for offering conscripts deferments based on sham guardianship over people with severe diagnoses. She enlisted the head of a village council’s social-protection department to fabricate documents. Most clients were residents of Sumy region, recruited through local contacts.
In Zhytomyr region, SSU counterintelligence detained a 39-year-old security guard from a Kyiv enterprise who organized draft dodgers’ "transfer" to the EU via the so-called "green corridor."
Two more escape routes for conscripts fleeing to EU countries outside official checkpoints were blocked by SSU military counterintelligence together with the SBI. Five organizers were detained, including the head of a charity fund and an employee of a Kharkiv correctional facility.
SSU military counterintelligence and the SBI also detained a former serviceman from Dnipro who offered a bribe to the command of the regiment where he had previously served. For a cash "reward," he attempted to arrange the escape of an acquaintance who had been mobilized from a restricted facility.
All detainees have been formally charged. They face prison sentences of up to nine years with confiscation of property.
