Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and the National Police have shut down nine schemes for evading military mobilization in various regions of the country and detained 23 people organizing the operations.
"For fees of up to $23,000, the operators helped conscripts avoid the draft using forged documents or illegal transport across the border outside checkpoints," the SBU said in a Telegram post on Wednesday.
In Kharkiv, five suspects were detained: the head of a therapy department, a neurologist, a hospital driver, an operator who prepared documents for medical panels, and an intermediary, who together sold conscripts fake medical certificates followed by disability registration, the SBU said.
The scheme’s members drew up forged documents for more than 100 clients, the SBU said, adding that 40 searches of the detainees turned up more than UAH 12 million believed to have been obtained illegally.
In the Lviv region, SBU counterintelligence detained the head of a department at a defense enterprise who took bribes to help conscripts get jobs in reserved positions at a strategically important facility, the SBU said.
In Mykolaiv, three local residents were detained for selling conscripts fake passports and driver’s licenses from a South Caucasus country, the SBU said.
To cover their tracks, the operators sent completed documents to clients by mail and received payment for their "services" to bank accounts, avoiding direct contact, the SBU said.
In the Kirovohrad region, the SBU detained the director of a private medical facility who set up a scheme for falsifying medical histories to register conscripts as disabled.
In Kyiv, a local businessman, a hostel administrator and his assistant were detained for organizing an illegal "transfer" of conscripts across Ukraine’s western border, the SBU said.
"In Dnipro, a blogger with a TikTok following of almost 7,000 was detained for leaking the locations of territorial recruitment and social support center (TRC) and law enforcement patrols to help conscripts evade notification," the SBU said.
Working as a driver at a private company, the suspect used his work trips to track where military and police personnel were concentrated, the SBU said.
Also in Dnipro, the SBU detained an operator who sold conscripts fake certificates for surgeries citing "poor" health, promising to use personal contacts at medical commissions to remove potential conscripts from the military register.
In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, SBU officers and border guards detained six more organizers of illegal border crossings, who prepared mountain routes for clients for a fee.
All detainees have been notified of suspicion under several articles of Ukraine’s Criminal Code.
The operations were conducted under the procedural guidance of the Prosecutor General’s Office, regional prosecutor’s offices, the Kyiv city prosecutor’s office, the Kamianets-Podilsky district prosecutor’s office, and the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Defense in the Western region.
