State Border Guard Service denies former Prosecutor General Kravchenko was allowed abroad "after call from Kyiv"

The State Border Guard Service has dismissed as false reports that then Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko was allowed to leave Ukraine in September "after a call from Kyiv".

Service spokesperson Andrii Demchenko said this in a comment to Censor.NET.

State Border Guard Service’s denial

"The reports currently circulating that Ruslan Kravchenko supposedly left 'following a call from Kyiv' are false and utterly absurd. The then prosecutor general crossed the border during the night on September 14, 2026," the spokesperson said.

According to Demchenko, the then prosecutor general crossed the border through the Shehyni checkpoint in the Lviv region.

"During border checks, Kravchenko provided documents confirming an official business trip, which entitled him to leave Ukraine. During processing, the database flagged an instruction from an authorised state body under code I (notification). This means that the relevant state bodies must be informed of the person’s departure. In accordance with the established procedure, the issuing authority was immediately notified by telephone that this person was leaving Ukraine," the State Border Guard Service spokesperson said.

He noted that this instruction does not prohibit a person from leaving the country but only requires notification of the issuing authority. Demchenko added that the issuing authority had also raised no objections to Kravchenko’s departure.

"The authorised state bodies had not issued the State Border Guard Service with any other instructions restricting this person’s departure from Ukraine," the spokesperson said.

Demchenko also noted that authorised state bodies clearly understand the procedures border guards follow when the service receives different types of instructions. These include, in particular, travel bans, wanted-person alerts and further checks to establish whether there are legal grounds for crossing the state border.

"In this case, there was no ban, and the border guards acted accordingly. When restrictions imposed by authorised bodies are recorded in the system, the person is not permitted to leave," Demchenko concluded.

Background

Earlier, Ukrainska Pravda reported in its investigation that Kravchenko was initially denied permission to cross into Poland through Shehyni because of a flag from NABU and SAPO, but was eventually allowed across the border after a call from Kyiv.

Kravchenko’s resignation

Earlier, Ruslan Kravchenko said he had signed notices of suspicion against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos and a person close to the head of the SAPO.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the Verkhovna Rada to immediately support Ruslan Kravchenko’s dismissal as Prosecutor General.
NABU and SAPO called Kravchenko’s actions a continuation of a systematic attack on anti-corruption bodies.
According to the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, Kravchenko left Ukraine on the night of September 14.
The Prosecutor General later said he was currently abroad on a business trip.
According to Censor.NET sources, Kravchenko registered his trip abroad as an official business trip to Brussels.
The Prosecutor General later said that NABU Director Kryvonos is suspected of fictitious adoption to evade criminal liability.
On September 14, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered the suspension of Ruslan Kravchenko as Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
The Prosecutor General’s Office denied reports that Semen Kryvonos had allegedly been served with a notice of suspicion.
Kravchenko accused NABU of trying to have the notice of suspicion against the bureau’s director, Semen Kryvonos, revoked through backroom arrangements.
On 15 September, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree dismissing Ruslan Kravchenko from the post of Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
Kravchenko himself said he had travelled abroad to, as he put it, "inform international partners about the real state of affairs within the anti-corruption agencies".
On September 24, Ukrainska Pravda reported that it had found Kravchenko in Vienna, the Austrian capital. According to the publication, he and his wife are registered in Austria at the address of a company’s office. Among other activities, the company sells pre-registered companies.

Mykhailo Tkach’s detention in Austria

On October 8, Mykhailo Tkach, head of Ukrainska Pravda’s investigative journalism department, was detained in Vienna while carrying out an editorial assignment to locate fugitive former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.
The editorial team considers the detention unlawful and demands the journalist’s immediate release and an official explanation of the Austrian law enforcement officers’ actions. At the time of the editorial team’s statement, the fate of Tkach’s colleague Yaroslav Bondarenko, who had travelled with him, was unknown.
Earlier, Ukrainska Pravda published Tkach’s investigation into former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko’s whereabouts in Vienna, where, according to the outlet, he and his wife had registered in Austria’s residence register.
On October 9, it emerged that Tkach had been released. He later posted a photograph on social media with his colleague Bondarenko, who had also been released.
The Vienna public prosecutor’s office later said that Tkach and Bondarenko had been detained on suspicion of espionage, but the suspicion was not substantiated.
Tkach said that armed, masked men smashed their car windows, dragged the journalists onto the road, and that one of the assailants pressed his knee against Tkach’s neck. According to him, he and Bondarenko were accused of spying on behalf of Ukrainian military intelligence, participating in a criminal organisation and causing harm to Austria. He said they were given no explanation of the grounds for the accusations.
The Vienna public prosecutor’s office later said that Tkach and Bondarenko had been detained based on eyewitness accounts that three people had been observing the same location during the same period.