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Staff at the emergency services centre were transporting people fleeing to Transnistria in an ambulance

Staff at the emergency services centre were transporting people fleeing to Transnistria in an ambulance

21 April 2026, 18:31

Staff at the emergency services centre were transporting people fleeing to Transnistria in an ambulance — Evasion of conscription

Law enforcement officers have uncovered a further six schemes to evade conscription and have arrested those behind the schemes.

This has been reported by the SBU.

For sums ranging from $2,000 to $20,000, the traffickers offered conscripts the chance to avoid conscription using forged documents or helped them flee abroad via unauthorised border crossings.

In Zakarpattia, a trafficker was detained who had established a channel for draft dodgers to flee to Europe and organised a ‘convoy’ to smuggle conscripts across the western border.

Law enforcement officers caught the organiser of the scheme ‘red-handed’ in the mountainous area of Rakhiv district, whilst he was transporting three draft dodgers towards the state border.

In Lviv region, a psychiatrist from the region’s central hospital was detained for offering to grant conscripts a Group III disability status in exchange for bribes.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a businessman was trading in fake medical commission reports declaring individuals unfit for service in combat units.

He promised men who had already been mobilised that he would enlist the help of officials he knew on the medical commission to forge medical reports, leading to their subsequent transfer to rear military units.

In the Odesa region, three employees of an emergency medical centre were detained for transporting draft dodgers to Transnistria in an ambulance.

Law enforcement officers detained the perpetrators as they were transporting a draft dodger, disguised as a paramedic, to the neighbouring country.

A local farmer in the region has also come under suspicion for organising the illegal ‘trafficking’ of conscripts out of Ukraine, bypassing checkpoints.

He enlisted the help of a local transporter who delivered the draft dodgers to border towns, from where they crossed the border on foot via forest paths.

In Vinnytsia, a resident of the capital was detained for organising a channel for illegal migration out of Ukraine. The perpetrator smuggled draft dodgers into a neighbouring country by swimming across the Dniester.

The perpetrators face up to nine years’ imprisonment with confiscation of property.

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