The Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigations (SBI)—the law enforcement agency tasked with investigating and prosecuting crimes committed by public officials, abuse of power, and embezzlement—earlier this week arrested a military official on corruption charges after he amassed a small fortune by helping men evade mobilization.
Yevhen Borisov, head of the Territorial Center for Procurement and Social Protection in Odesa, an agency that oversees mobilization and conscription efforts in the southern oblast, was arrested on Monday, June 24th, on charges of illegal enrichment, dereliction of duty, and deliberate evasion of military duty, Radio Svoboda reports.
The charges follow an investigation launched last year that revealed Borisov had purchased real estate in Spain and luxury vehicles, all registered in his mother’s name, worth some 4 million euros, with money he had amassed via a scheme where he accepted bribes in return for exempting some would-be soldiers from mobilization.
Prior to arresting Borisov earlier this week, SBI law enforcement officers had charged the former military officer on Saturday with the aforementioned crimes but had failed to locate his whereabouts since he repeatedly changed his car license plates, phone numbers, and location.
The SBI’s criminal probe into Borisov’s activities came in response to a separate investigation—this time carried out by the well-known media outlet Ukrainska Pravda—that accused him and his close family members of having bought several sports cars and a villa in the upscale Marbella resort in southern Spain while the Ukrainian military fought off invading Russian forces in February of 2022.
According to the SBI, included among the fleet of cars that the former military commissioner had amassed with his newfound wealth were a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, a Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG, and a Toyota Land Cruiser.
Furthermore, the SBI in its report notes that, in addition to the 4 million euro home registered to Borisov’s mother, his wife “purchased another foreign property—an office space in Spain worth 737,000 euros, also without having a sufficient number of legally obtained assets and income for this.”
A month later, Borisov faced accusations from Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau of taking bribes amounting to some 188 million hryvnias (4.6 million euros) from local residents who sought to avoid military mobilization with his help. Borisov is accused of having ordered those working under him to not issue military mobilization summonses to certain individuals in exchange for cash bribes.
Borisov has publicly denied the allegations. He faces up to ten years in prison if convicted of the crimes he is accused of.
As most are well aware, Ukraine is a country that has long been plagued by corruption. In 2022, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index—the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide—ranked Ukraine as the most corrupt country in Europe after Russia and 116th in the world, alongside Angola.
Despite serious efforts to rid the country of the problem as it seeks to join Western alliances and institutions, corruption has remained and has reared its head repeatedly throughout the conflict’s duration.
At the beginning of this year, following the initiation of a broad anti-corruption drive, fifteen senior Ukrainian officials resigned from their positions, six of whom have been accused of corruption by journalists and the country’s anti-corruption authorities. Among the most high-profile politicians who stepped down during this period was Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Vasyl Lozinskyi, who was arrested and accused of stealing $400,000 meant for purchasing humanitarian aid.
