The SSU, the State Bureau of Investigation, and the National Police have dismantled new draft evasion schemes operating across several regions of Ukraine.

As a result of operations, 15 organizers were detained for arranging draft evasion in exchange for bribes. The schemes involved fictitious employment, forged documents, and the illegal crossing of the state border outside official checkpoints.

In Sumy region, SSU counterintelligence officers and investigators from the Main Investigation Department dismantled an interregional scheme that fraudulently registered evaders as ‘teachers’ at a fictitious private educational institution. Using fake employment, the scheme's clients obtained deferments from mobilization.

More than 200 people liable for military service used the scheme. Eight organizers, including the director of the fictitious institution, have been detained.

In Kharkiv, law enforcement officers exposed a lawyer who, in exchange for bribes, arranged fictitious employment for draft evaders at a local critical infrastructure enterprise.

It has been established that the ‘newly arrived employees’ did not even turn up for work, and that the fake employment record books were used to secure a deferral from mobilisation.

In Rivne, a member of the expert team responsible for assessing an individual’s day-to-day functioning (formerly the Medical and Social Expert Commission) was detained. Together with his accomplices, he falsified the medical records of conscripts to issue medical certificates declaring them unfit for military service.

According to findings, the suspects ‘confirmed’ the existence of severe illnesses and unjustifiably assigned Group III disability status.

In Cherkasy region, a perpetrator was detained for accepting money to help draft dodgers obtain carer status and evade mobilisation.

To this end, the suspect enlisted the help of officials he knew on the Medical Examination Commission to forge medical reports for the relatives of those liable for military service, stating that they required constant care.

In Ivano-Frankivsk region, the SSU and the SBI uncovered three suspects who were smuggling evaders across the state border into a neighbouring EU country.

The escape route ran through mountainous terrain, bypassing checkpoints.

In Dnipropetrovsk region, a blogger from the Samarivskyi district was detained for ‘leaking’ the locations and movements of mobile units belonging to the Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centres and law enforcement officers on a messaging app.

To disseminate classified information, the suspect used his own Telegram channel with an audience of over 1,500 subscribers.

The suspects have now been notified of suspicion under several articles of the CCU:

• 369-2.3 – receiving an unlawful benefit for exerting influence over the decision-making of a person authorized to perform state functions;
• 332.3 – illegal transportation of persons across the state border of Ukraine;
• 28.2, 28.3, 114-1.1 – obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations during a special period, committed by a group of persons acting in prior collusion

The criminals face up to nine years in prison and confiscation of their property.

The operations were carried out under the procedural guidance of the Prosecutor General's Office, the regional prosecutor’s offices and the Specialised Prosecutor’s Office for Defence in the Western Region.