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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Notwithstanding this, the agency did not independently initiate investigations into any crime, according to the Center for Combating Corruption (CCC) citing documents that confirm this information.
The statement concerns the response of the Office of the Military Ombudsman to inquiries from Members of Parliament, with copies of eight letters that the Office sent to the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) from March to June. They reported complaints from servicemen or their relatives, as well as requests to investigate what is happening.
The letters describe beatings, failure to provide medical aid leading to the death of victims, threats with weapons, torture and violence, illegal confinement, and other violations by officials of the 'Shakhte' (Rock) unit towards military personnel.
However, these cases were not investigated by the SBI, but were referred to the Military Service of Order and Law (MSOL) and other law enforcement bodies.
As an example, the CCC cites a case in which 30 in March the SBI received a letter from a serviceman’s sister recounting that her brother was beaten and died in hospital because he did not receive medical aid after the beating.
In response, the bureau investigator stated that "there were not enough grounds to enter the information into the unified register of pre-trial investigations (URPI)."
The complaint was referred to MSOL allegedly for additional fact verification, although by law the investigator should have immediately begun checking the facts outlined in the complaint.
"As a result of reviewing the materials, it was established that they do not contain complete and objective data that could indicate the commission of a criminal offense falling within the competence of SBI investigators, and therefore there are currently no sufficient grounds to enter the aforementioned information into URPI," wrote the SBI investigator in response to the Office of the Military Ombudsman.
A similar result, i.e., no reaction, was also the outcome of appeals to former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko and his prosecutors, sent by the ombudsman back in July 2025.
The case only moved off dead center after the outlet Babbel published numerous cases of rights violations against servicemen in the 'Shakhte' unit. The article came out 23 in June and had a bombshell effect.
Subsequently, it turned out that the Office of the Military Ombudsman had been informing the SBI about similar crimes long before the publication.
When the scandal gained nationwide attention, the Bureau entered a statement into URPI and began investigating the violations.
Executive Director of CCC Darya Kalenyuk notes that, although complaints about lawlessness in command within certain units were already reaching investigators, investigations began only after media publication:
"Sukhachov (Oleksiy Sukhachov — head of SBI) may be able to report thousands of cases, but the real result is stopping abuses by inadequate commanders against subordinates. When the SBI forwards statements instead of investigating the facts they contain, it fails to perform its main task. And for this inefficiency, our soldiers and their families pay with their health and lives."
At the time of writing, SBI did not comment on the information disclosed by CCC in any way.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "ДБР знало про порушення прав військових у полку «Скеля», але не розпочало розслідувань, — ЦПК". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: HAB Media.
