Soldier and ex-council deputy suspected in draft evasion scheme
A soldier from the Kropyvnytskyi military unit and a former deputy of the Kropyvnytskyi City Council are suspected of aiding mobilization evasion. The case is being investigated under the article "Abuse of influence."
This was told to the media by Olga Protsenko, a spokeswoman for the territorial department of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) in Mykolaiv.
According to her, investigators determined that the soldier was offering a "service" to men who had received summonses and were looking for an opportunity to avoid service.
He involved a former deputy in the deal, who assured him that he had connections in medical institutions and could help with the necessary documents.
For $11,500, "clients" were offered several options for obtaining unfit for service status, the spokeswoman said.
In particular, they could be hospitalized or undergo medical examinations with subsequent diagnoses such as hypertension or diabetes. These findings would later become the basis for declaring the men unfit for military service during the military medical commission.
The suspects were detained on March 10 after receiving money from a conscript, were reported on suspicion of abuse of influence, and on March 12, the Fortechny District Court of Kropyvnytskyi chose a preventive measure - detention with the right to post bail of 1.5 million hryvnias.
The sanction of Part 3 of Article 369-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine "Abuse of influence: accepting an offer, promise or receiving an undue benefit for oneself or a third party for influencing a decision-making process by a person authorized to perform state or local government functions, combined with the extortion of such benefit" provides for a penalty of 3-8 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property.
Investigators are checking the possible involvement of other people, in particular doctors from the military medical commission, and are also identifying those who could have taken advantage of this scheme, Olga Protsenko added.
According to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent of committing a crime and cannot be subjected to criminal punishment until his guilt is proven in accordance with the law and established by a court verdict of guilty.
We previously reported that a scheme worth UAH 14 million was uncovered in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
