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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Shchevchenkivsky District Court of Poltava city approved plea agreements of guilt in the case of two men who organized a channel for illegally transporting a man of conscription age across the state border for 20 thousand dollars. A similar scheme of leaving the country was previously uncovered in Odesa region. Both defendants in the Poltava case admitted guilt and received five years of imprisonment, suspended.
According to the text of the verdict, published in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, one of the defendants organized a channel for transporting male persons across the border and enlisted a acquaintance - a resident of Kyiv. The first sought clients willing to leave Ukraine for money, and the second was in charge of directing these people across the border.
According to the case materials, 19 February 2025 year the channel organizer met at the Piryatyn bus station with a man who wanted to go abroad and offered to organize an illegal departure using personal connections for 20 000 US dollars. The man was to provide copies of documents - passport, identification code, birth certificates of children, marriage certificate, and military registration document - as well as an advance payment of 2000 US dollars.
26 February 2025 year the client handed the organizer 21 000 hryvnias as partial payment and copies of documents.
15 April 2025 year he transferred to a bank card another 63 000 hryvnias.
16 April 2025 year during a meeting in Kyiv he handed the partner of the organizer 18 000 US dollars in cash.
During a meeting in Kyiv 16 April 2025 year the partner described in detail to the client the mechanism of transporting to the Slovak Republic, assuring the production of forged documents with the seal of the State Migration Service for permanent residence. Immediately after the man handed over the money, he was detained by police.
In addition to organizing illegal border crossing, one of the defendants was also charged with illegal storage of ammunition. During a search of a car, an Audi Q5 in Piryatyn, police found a hand-made fragmentation grenade RGD-5 with an upgraded fuse, which, according to a forensic examination, could be considered part of explosive devices when combined into a single construction.
The court imposed punishments under the agreed agreements.
The court qualified the organizer’s actions under part 3 of Article 332 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as organization of illegal crossing of persons across the state border for greed, by prior conspiracy of a group of persons. His accomplice was additionally charged with illegal storage of an explosive device under part 1 of Article 263 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The man who directly met the client in Kyiv was found guilty under part 3 of Article 332 of the Criminal Code and awarded 5 years of imprisonment, but released from serving the sentence on probation for a term of 2 years.
The organizer of the channel was found guilty under part 1 of Article 263 and part 3 of Article 332 of the Criminal Code, ultimately sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment for the aggregate of offenses, with probation and an probationary period of 3 years.
Both were prohibited from holding positions related to border control for a term of 3 years.
From the organizer of the channel the court recovered for the state 2674 hryvnias 20 kopecks as costs for engaging experts.
The court took into account that the defendants fully admitted guilt, sincerely repented, actively assisted in establishing the truth, and pledged to contribute 242 000 hryvnias to the defense needs. In addition, the court denied the defense’s motion on behalf of a third party who asked for the return of retrieved during the search 4000 US dollars - the court critically assessed the provided receipt, since others did not confirm that the funds belonged to that person.
The court also canceled the seizures of property imposed by the investigating judge of the Oktyabrskyi district court of Poltava in April 2025 year, and decided the fate of other evidentiary items in the case – particularly seized mobile phones, bank cards, and medical documents for dozens of people who returned to their owners.
Why both defendants avoided real imprisonment
Plea agreements were approved after inspection for compliance with the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine: entering into agreements was voluntary, and the legal qualification of actions was correct. The court noted that criminal offenses in which the defendants admitted guilt are classified as serious crimes, as a result of which rights and interests of individuals were not harmed, so entering into agreements did not contravene the law.
The verdict on the basis of the agreement may be appealed by the defendants to the Poltava Appellate Court only on a limited set of grounds – in particular if the court would have imposed a harsher punishment than agreed by the parties, or issued the verdict without the consent of the defendant.
Similar cases of illegal border crossing and corruption schemes around mobilization are regularly recorded by law enforcement. Earlier Informator reported that at one checkpoint a man was detained with a forged birth certificate of a third child, which he bought via a Telegram channel to take advantage of the allowance for large families. We also wrote that a Security Service of Ukraine employee, who is accused of receiving a bribe of 68 thousand dollars for delaying mobilization for draft dodgers, will face the court.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Ухилянтам продавали виїзд за кордон за $20 тисяч - чим здивувала суд справа на Полтавщині". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Informator.
