Lawyers and recruitment officers arrested in Kiev and Kherson over draft evasion schemes

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), together with the National Police, arrested six suspects involved in two evasion scheme projects in Kiev and Kherson, respectively.

The SBU said the suspects included lawyers and employees of Ukraine’s territorial recruitment centers (TRC) tasked by the government with mobilizing men of draft age. The SBU did not specify the dates of the arrests.

The SBU press release on Thursday, October 10, said that two lawyers were arrested in Kiev for “(offering) recruits to hide from mobilization due to illegal employment in one of the state defense companies” after falsifying their medical records using information from lawyers. own connections.

“Initially, those involved organized for their clients a formal military medical commission (VLK) examination and ‘accompanied’ the documents to the TRC to avoid the summons procedure.

“To this end, the lawyers used personal connections in the VLK and military commissars in the capital,” the press release reads, adding that a suspect was caught red-handed while receiving money for his services, and his accomplice was detained in Cherkasy.

In Kherson, three TRC employees and an accomplice from a local administrative services center were arrested.

The accomplice allegedly offered the service during the updating of the military registration, which she then sent to TRC employees to remove the names for fictitious health reasons.

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The suspects allegedly offered the service for $7,000 to $12,000 per recruit. They all face up to 10 years in prison with confiscation of property if convicted.

Long-standing problems with TRCs

Ukrainians have long questioned the effectiveness and legitimacy of the TRC, which has been implicated in a series of scandals that have shaken local residents’ confidence in the mobilization effort.

On the one hand, TRC officials were accused of corruption – as in the most recent case – a situation that saw only a small improvement following President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to fire all TRC leaders in August 2023, in an attempt to restore public confidence.

While it cannot be said that corruption is a systematic problem among TRCs, it is fair to say that the cases are not isolated – in March, similar schemes were discovered in the Khmelnytsky region of Ukraine; In May, Ukraine’s National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) identified corruption crimes in 8 of 541 employees after auditing a third of all CVR employees.

Corruption aside, the TRC’s occasionally harsh approach to recruitment did not sit well with locals.

In April, TRC officials allegedly abducted a 14-year-old teenager in a minibus in the Odesa region, on his way to the recruitment office, and later left him several kilometers away, after learning his age. In May, the National Bar Association of Ukraine reported that a lawyer was forcibly taken to the TRC while providing free legal assistance in criminal cases.

Nick, a man of draft age from the Kyiv Post interviewed in April, before Ukraine introduced its updated mobilization law, summarized his views on the TRC as follows:

“Recruitment centers and their representatives often outsource local crooks to do their dirty work. And these guys can just beat the guy (who) refuses to go with them. They can just stop the bus and deliver all the men to the recruiting center. When I see that my patriotism disappears without a trace,” he told the Kyiv Post at the time.

Potential change in mobilization approach

Given these precedents, Ukraine appears to be considering options to reduce its dependence on the TRC to attract more local citizens to join the military.

On October 1, the Cabinet of Ministers allowed military units to directly issue a referral of volunteers to the medical commission if Ukrainians wish to serve in a particular unit.

The changes essentially bypassed the TRC, where previous procedures required volunteers to continue visiting the TRC with a referral letter from the desired unit, which was sometimes ignored.

Oleksandr Okhrimenko, commander of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, praised the decision.

“We can assure civilians who wish to serve in one position or another within our brigade that they will join the unit of their choice. Because until now there have been problems with this.

“There are cases when people who agreed to serve in training centers with the leadership of the chosen units, for a number of different reasons, after training in training centers, do not enter ‘their’ units,” Okhrimenko told Glavcom in an interview.

The latest decision coincided with Nick’s vision in April.

“Examples from the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade show that conscription, unlike violent mobilization, (works) and (works) very well. There (are) many people willing to fight directly against the Russians, and they are voluntarily turning to recruiters from the local brigade,” he told the Kyiv Post at the time.

In another important move, Ukraine’s parliament also banned the mobilization of people under the age of 25 – although lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said the decision had not yet included a demobilization clause for under-25s, a notion that was the subject of an heated debate when Ukraine introduced a new mobilization. law in May.

Ukraine’s mobilization law has been criticized in Ukraine as punishment rather than incentive-oriented, but the latest rulings have demonstrated a push for more incentives for locals to help defend the nation.

Meanwhile, observers in countries that support Ukraine have often questioned Kiev’s reluctance to recruit younger men, especially since the average age of Ukrainian soldiers is 40, although Ukraine is likely trying to preserve the younger generation out of fear of a post-war demographic crisis.

As the war continues to rage into its third year and the horrors of war become a discernible reality, it remains to be seen whether changes can help Ukraine bolster its ranks.