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Shabunin has announced that he is leaving the Armed Forces of Ukraine due to having ‘lost most of his sight’

Shabunin has announced that he is leaving the Armed Forces of Ukraine due to having ‘lost most of his sight’

19 May 2026, 14:16

Shabunin has announced that he is leaving the Armed Forces of Ukraine due to having ‘lost most of his sight’ — Vitaliy Shabunin

Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, has stated that he has left the Armed Forces due to the loss of most of his sight. He intends to continue his work at the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.

He wrote about this on his Telegram channel.

“My service is over. Having lost most of my sight, I am leaving the Armed Forces of Ukraine, where I volunteered on the first day of the great war. Over four years in the Armed Forces: half of that time in the Kharkiv region and the east (particularly in Druzhkivka), the rest in Kharkiv and Kyiv,” writes Shabunin.

According to him, the discharge order was signed “a few days ago”, and he is now at home — he says he will spend time with his family, stabilise his eye condition and return to work at the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.

Shabunin also stated that the Ukrainian authorities “have fully exploited his voluntary service against him”. In particular, the anti-corruption activist mentioned the criminal case on suspicion of systematic evasion of military service, which was initiated by the State Bureau of Investigations and the Office of the Prosecutor General.

“And the service itself was turned into a circus: for example, they photographed me every day unloading lorries with food, and sent the photos to the higher command (which, I assume, is the Office of the President),” he added.

Shabunin noted that as soon as he “began to deploy a drone air defence unit”, he was immediately transferred to another brigade to carry out different tasks. According to him, he wrote reports about the transfer, but the commanders who wanted to transfer him to their units were “strongly advised not to rock the boat”.

The head of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre also says that “I joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a soldier on the first day of the war, and I’m leaving as a senior sergeant”, as former Defence Minister Rustem Umerov “refused to sign his officer’s contract”.

As a reminder, the court previously found Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, guilty of assaulting pro-Russian blogger Vsevolod Filimonenk. The defence will appeal the verdict.

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