Ukraine war briefing: Draft-dodging scandal sees Kyiv’s top prosecutor resign and officials sacked
Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, has resigned after dozens of his officials allegedly had themselves registered as disabled to avoid military service.
“The prosecutor general must take political responsibility for the
situation in the prosecution bodies of Ukraine,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy,
announced after a security council meeting about cracking down on draft
dodging. Kostin minutes later called the situation “clearly amoral” and
agreed with Ukraine’s president that “it is right to announce my
resignation from the position of prosecutor general”. Ukraine’s domestic
security service, the SBU, said on Tuesday that 64 members of medical commissions had been named as suspects in criminal investigations in 2024, and nine more had been tried and found guilty.
“It is not only prosecutors, by the way,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address. “There are hundreds of cases of obviously unjustified disability [statuses]
among customs and tax officials, in the pension fund system, and in
local administrations … All this must be dealt with carefully and
promptly.” After the security council meeting, the prime minister, Denys
Shmyhal, dismissed the management of the central commission overseeing
fitness for service, and senior officials in related roles in the health
ministry. Zelenskyy ordered his cabinet to urgently draft a law
dissolving existing medical commissions and reforming the disability
assessment system.
It came as Ukrainian officials said a man wanted for evading a military call-up killed himself
after being caught by police and taken to an army recruitment centre in
the central city of Poltava. “He refused to undergo a military medical
examination,” the recruitment centre said, and his body was found in one
of the centre’s “technical rooms” showing “obvious signs” of suicide.
An investigation into the circumstances of his death was opened.
Mobilisation is a sensitive subject in Ukraine. Most working-age men are
barred from leaving the country and those aged 25 and over are subject to being called up to fight.
