In collaboration with the State Bureau of Investigation, the National Police and the Prosecutor’s Office, the Security Service has dismantled a further ten schemes to evade military service and detained thirteen organisers of these schemes in several regions of Ukraine.

The perpetrators helped men evade mobilisation, facilitated the illegal discharge of military personnel from service and organised smuggling of draft dodgers across the state border in exchange for sums ranging from USD 2,500 to 30,000.

In the Mykolaiv region, the head of the children’s affairs department at a town council in the Voznesensk district has been exposed. For USD 2,500, he promised to help military personnel to be ‘written off’ from service.

The organizer helped ‘clients’ draw up documents appointing them as ‘guardians of relatives who required constant care’. To carry out this scheme, the perpetrator exploited his personal connections at the district Territorial Recruitment Centre.

In the Mykolaiv region, the SSU and the National Police also detained a mechanic-driver from a military unit who had solicited up to USD 16,000 from the relatives of military personnel in exchange for their unlawful discharge on the grounds of ‘poor health’. The perpetrator planned to utilise personal connections among officials at the Military Medical Commission for this scheme.

In Vinnytsia, the SSU and the National Police exposed two fraudsters who promised to use their personal connections at the Territorial Recruitment Centre to ‘resolve the issue’ of conscripts evading mobilisation in exchange for USD 4,000.

Another fraudster was detained in the city for selling forged medical certificates with ‘serious diagnoses’ to secure deferrals from conscription for USD 10,000.

To this end, he enlisted the help of acquaintances in the Expert teams assessing person’s day-to-day functioning (formerly the MSECs) to produce fake medical certificates for men evading conscription. The aim was to subsequently assign them to disability categories.

Additionally, a man from Dnipro has been documented as having organised the illegal ‘transfer’ of conscripts across Ukraine’s western border for money.

The perpetrator enlisted an accomplice, who is currently outside the country, to operate the scheme. The trafficker priced the service at USD 8,000.

In Chernivtsi, the SSU cyber team, in collaboration with the National Police, exposed a pre-school education institution employee who, for USD 10,000, enlisted doctors she knew to arrange fictitious ‘inpatient treatment’ for the draft dodgers.

The conscripts were then unjustifiably assigned a disability category and granted exemption from military service.

In the Lviv region, another organiser of a network illegally smuggling conscripts across the border was detained.

He is a resident of the Sambir district who used his own car to transport evaders to a designated location near the state border for EUR 11,000. He then instructed them on how to cross the border illegally on foot outside official crossing points.

In the same region, a State Border Guard Service inspector is to stand trial based on evidence from the Security Service of Ukraine and the State Bureau of Investigation.

In exchange for USD 30,000, the official promised to arrange the necessary documents for conscripts to leave the country unhindered via official border crossing points. Furthermore, a hand-held anti-personnel grenade was discovered during searches of the suspect’s premises, which he had been illegally storing in his car.

In Lviv, the director and head of a department at the city council’s dental clinic were exposed for organising fictitious employment for conscripts, thereby ‘exempting’ them from mobilisation.

For USD 5,500, they falsely employed ‘clients’ as doctors and added them to the list of employees reserved from conscription.

In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, the SSU cyber team, in cooperation with the National Police, blocked the illegal activities of two officials at the district Territorial Recruitment Centre.

The head of the department and a branch operator deleted data relating to breaches of military registration requirements from the electronic register of conscripts, thereby removing draft evaders from the wanted list. They also entered false information claiming that men had completed military service, resulting in their removal from the register of those liable for military service.

The SSU documented the suspects’ unlawful activities and detained them.

They have now been served with notices of suspicion in relation to offences committed under the Articles of the CCU:

• 332.3 (illegal smuggling of persons across Ukraine's state border);
• 362.1, 362.3 (unauthorised actions involving information processed in electronic systems);
• 368.1 (receipt of an unlawful benefit by a public official);
• 28.2, 369-2 (abuse of influence combined with extortion of an unlawful benefit, by a group, by prior conspiracy);
• 114-1.1 (obstructing the lawful activities of the AFU);
• 263.1 (unlawful handling of weapons, ammunition, and explosive substances).

The suspects face up to nine years’ imprisonment with confiscation of property. The investigations are underway.

The operational and investigative measures were carried out under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor’s Offices.