Over 80 draft dodgers smuggled abroad: five border guards detained in Lviv region
According to Ukrinform, SBI reported the information.
“Servicemen of one of the border detachments of the Western Regional Directorate of the State Border Guard Service, under martial law, facilitated the illegal departure of men of conscription age from Ukraine. At a checkpoint on the border with Poland, they deliberately violated document verification procedures: they did not cross-check data in databases, did not record border crossings, and effectively gave a ‘green light’ to those not entitled to leave,” the report said. In this way, the officials ensured the illegal departure of at least 80 men aged 18 to 60.
In early September, all five servicemen were detained on suspicion of committing criminal offenses under Part 3 of Article 419 and Part 2 of Article 332 of the Criminal Code (violation of border service regulations, illegal transfer of persons across the state border of Ukraine). The articles carry a penalty of up to 10 years’ imprisonment. The suspects were remanded in custody as a preventive measure.
In addition, the involvement of senior officers of the border detachment in the crimes is being investigated. Law enforcement is establishing the sources of assets belonging to one of the commanders, including apartments, a house, a land plot, expensive cars, and significant sums of money, whose value far exceeds his declared income.
In total, more than 40 searches were conducted as part of the proceedings.
According to the SBI, in 2025, its staff initiated 141 criminal proceedings related to organizing illegal border crossings. Seventy-three indictments have already been sent to court.
The State Border Guard Service clarified that the servicemen in question were those on duty in border patrols at the Ugryniv checkpoint in the Lviv region. “The investigation established that between September 2024 and January 2025, they failed to enter information on border crossings into the relevant database, thereby facilitating the illegal departure of more than 80 men of conscription age,” the border service noted.
As reported by Ukrinform, in Zhytomyr, the SSU exposed a lawyer who, together with her son, had set up a scheme to issue fake medical certificates for servicemen, enabling them to be discharged from service.
