University management in Zaporizhzhia to face trial over a scheme involving ‘postgraduate students’ to evade conscription

This was announced by Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.

In Ukraine, the management of a private university in Zaporizhzhia and other participants in a scheme whereby conscripts were fictitiously enrolled in postgraduate programmes are to stand trial.

According to the investigation, an indictment has been sent to court against nine members of the criminal organisation.

Investigators believe the scheme was organised by the rector and owner of the private university in Zaporizhzhia.

According to the investigation, he involved his daughter – the vice-rector for academic and research affairs – three other vice-rectors, the deputy director of one of the institutes, the head of the information systems centre, and staff from the postgraduate department in the scheme.

How the scheme worked

The fictitious enrolment was arranged through the forgery of documents, the entry of false data and illegal interference with the state EDEBO database.

Admission documents were backdated, and the “postgraduate students” themselves, according to the investigation, did not actually study.

Over two years, nearly 3,500 men of conscription age were illegally enrolled through the scheme.

Around 3,000 of them were granted grounds for deferment from conscription.

At the same time, the authorised intake for postgraduate studies was exceeded by a factor of 13. The institution was authorised to accept no more than 265 postgraduate students.

How much did the ‘services’ cost?

The cost of participating in the scheme consisted of the official tuition fees and an unlawful benefit.

The official fee was almost 20,000 hryvnias for two semesters.

Separately, according to the investigation, unlawful benefits were taken from those liable for military service – ranging from several hundred to over 260,000 hryvnias per person.

In total, the scheme brought the organisers over 50 million hryvnias.

How the scheme was exposed

The scheme was exposed after the administrator of the Unified State Electronic Database of Education (USEDE) detected a suspicious mass registration of applicants and contacted the police.

Following this, the Ministry of Education and Science revoked the university’s licence to train postgraduate students.

What are the defendants accused of

All the accused are charged with participation in a criminal organisation, bribery, document forgery, interference with IT systems and obstruction of the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The organiser of the scheme is additionally charged with establishing a criminal organisation and laundering illegally obtained funds.

Kravchenko emphasised that education cannot be a cover for trading in deferrals, nor can a degree or postgraduate status be a tool for evading one’s duty to the state.

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