– I paid a thousand dollars for a fake permission to leave the country, Mikhail tells via video connection from Kyiv.
A man from Kyiv in his early thirties says he paid an amount worth around 940 euros to a Ukrainian aid organization a year ago. Through the organization, he got permission from the authority responsible for recruiting soldiers to leave the country for a month in his own car.
Officially, the permission was given so that Mihail would have gone to collect relief supplies from Poland to Ukraine as a volunteer. In reality, he went to Turkey and Germany to meet his partner and parents.
Mihail returned to Kiev after a month without relief supplies.
Others flee Ukraine by crossing the border illegally.
Interviewed by via video connection Vitaly Rozmolov hiked from Ukraine to Moldova in August. He says that he paid about a thousand dollars for the instructions received from the messaging service Telegram, which directed him to the right route.
Ukrainian men between the ages of 15 and 60 have not been allowed to leave their country without a special permit since Russia started the war of aggression in February of last year.
Some of the interviewees appear in the story anonymously or with just their first name due to the sensitivity of the topic. could not verify all the information presented by the interviewees.
10,000 euros are requested for the medical report
There are many illegal ways to escape the country, say Ukrainians interviewed by as well as previous ones articles written on the subject.
For example, there is a special permit for sale, with which a conscript can leave the country as an assistant to a severely disabled person. Mihail says that today it costs about 5,000 dollars, or 4,700 euros.
An amount worth up to 10,000 euros can be paid for a medical certificate exempting you from military service. Illegal services are beyond the reach of most people, as the average salary of Ukrainians is only a couple of hundred euros.
Corruption services are widely sold on the messaging service Telegram. Prices vary, but in general the price level has become more expensive, as the authorities have started to patch loopholes as the war continues.
Border guards are also bribed
Vitali Rozmolov says that he got across the border to Moldova easily.
He says that the border guards are paid so little that they can’t take care of runaways in difficult terrain. According to Rozmolov, border guards can also be bribed with an amount worth just under 5,000 euros.
In Moldova, Rozmolov reported to the local border guards. He was allowed to continue his journey to Romania after several hours of questioning. Today he lives with his family in Germany.
In addition to Moldova, Ukrainians also aspire to other neighboring countries such as Romania. Romanian authorities reported in the summer that during the war of aggression against Russia, 6,200 men of conscription age had crossed the land border illegally.
Border Guard of Ukraine on the other hand, recently reported that the country’s authorities had arrested 13,600 people who had tried to cross the border outside the checkpoints since the start of the war of aggression. Around 6,100 men had been caught at border crossings while trying to get out with fake or fraudulently obtained permits.
“Corruption is in our genes”
The third Ukrainian man interviewed by fled the country at the beginning of the war of aggression with forged documents. He currently lives in the United States.
All three Ukrainian men consider their country thoroughly corrupt, and they are not convinced by the administration’s promises to eradicate corruption.
Transparency International, which measures corruption In a comparison made by the organization last year, Ukraine was the second most corrupt country in Europe after Russia. According to the organization, in ten years, Ukraine has taken steps to root out corruption, but the Russian war of aggression has increased the risks.
– Corruption is in our genes. When Valto hasn’t offered me a good education or decent roads, why should I die for it? Mihail asks.
The man from Kyiv is now collecting money in order to be able to pay the necessary bribes to move out of the country.
The anti-corruption agency does not comment
No one knows for sure how many conscripts have fled Ukraine by illegal means. It is about at least tens of thousands of men.
Corruption surrounding conscription avoidance is so great that it has led to extraordinary measures.
In August, the president Volodymyr Zelenskyi dismissed the heads of all Ukrainian regional recruiting offices. More than a hundred criminal proceedings are ongoing in connection with the case.
The anti-corruption agency of Ukraine is currently conducting inspections of recruitment agencies. The agency refused to comment to on the corruption related to exemptions and exemptions for conscripts and the army in general.
The subject is a tricky one, because there are currently other corruption rings in the Ukrainian army. The situation forced the country’s former defense minister to leave his post at the end of August.
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