The Security Service, the State Bureau of Investigation, and the National Police have eliminated another 11schemes for evading mobilization. 23 organizers of the schemes have been detained in several regions of Ukraine.

For sums ranging from USD 2,500 to 17,000, they offered to evade conscription using forged documents or helped to flee abroad outside of checkpoints.

In Kyiv, two local residents were detained for selling ‘reservations’. For money, they arranged for their ‘clients’ to be employed at critical infrastructure enterprises, with subsequent departure from Ukraine under the pretext of a ‘work trip’.

In Poltava region, the law enforcement blocked three such schemes. This includes two lawyers with accomplices, as well as a local dealer who removed draft dodgers from the search list at the Territorial Recruitment Center and helped them to be ‘written off’ from military records on the basis of fictitious diagnoses.

To operate the scheme, the organizers used their connections among doctors and military registration and enlistment office officials.

In Ivano-Frankivsk region, six local residents were exposed for organizing the escape of conscripts to the EU through a border park. Half of the persons involved worked in the administration of a Ukrainian nature reserve.

They first accompanied the ‘tourists’ to the border in their own cars and then took them to a neighbouring EU country via mountain trails.

In Cherkasy region, the deputy dean of a university was exposed for accepting bribes to enroll draft dodgers in her university. She received almost half a million Hryvnias from this activity only this year.

Also in the region, the head of the local branch of the Social Protection Fund for Persons with Disabilities has been detained. She offered men a deferral from mobilization on the basis of guardianship over persons with serious diagnoses.

The woman enlisted the help of the head of the social protection department of one of the village councils to produce fake documents. Most of the ‘clients’ were residents of Sumy region, whom the organizer found through her acquaintances.

In Zhytomyr region, the SSU Counterintelligence detained a 39-year-old security guard of one of Kyiv’s enterprises. He organized a ‘transfer’ of draft dodgers to the EU through the ‘green border’.

Another two channels for evaders to flee to EU countries outside checkpoints were blocked by the SSU Military Counterintelligence in cooperation with the State Bureau of Investigation. As a result of joint actions, five organizers were detained, including the head of a charitable foundation and an employee of a Kharkiv correctional colony.

The SSU Military Counterintelligence and the SBI also detained a former military serviceman from Dnipro who offered a bribe to the command of the regiment where he had previously served. For this money, he tried to arrange an escape of his friend who had been mobilized.

All the detained individuals have been notified of suspicion, according to the offences committed, under the Articles of the CCU:

• 28.2, 114-1.1 (obstruction of the lawful activities of the AFU and other military formations, committed upon prior conspiracy, by a group);
• 332.2, 332.3 (illegal transportation of persons across the state border of Ukraine);
• 366.1 (official forgery);
• 369-2.3 (abuse of influence).

The suspects face up to 9 years in prison with confiscation of property.

The operational and investigative actions were carried out under the procedural supervision of the Office of the Prosecutor General, the Obolon District Prosecutor’s Office of Kyiv, as well as Poltava, Cherkasy, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv and Zhytomyr regional prosecutor’s offices.