The prosecutor’s office announced on Tuesday a full-scale counteroffensive in Ukraine to root out a system of corruption that allows those drafted into the army to escape from it. More than 200 military centers were searched, AFP and Agerpres inform.

Ukrainian soldiersPhoto: Ukrinform / Avalon / Profimedia

“Practically in all regions of the country, law enforcement agencies discovered large-scale corruption systems (…). More than 200 simultaneous searches are currently being conducted,” the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine reported on Telegram.

Investigators suspect “the involvement of some officials of military commissions responsible for medical and social examination,” the prosecutor’s office said.

According to the investigation, in exchange for bribes, “officials helped citizens obtain disability certificates or declared them temporarily unfit for military service. This allowed them to postpone or avoid military service,” the prosecutor’s office added.

Military personnel who fought at the front should head the assembly points, Zelenskyi said

At the beginning of August, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed all regional officials responsible for military recruitment, in particular mentioning the system that would allow illegal entry into the army “from abroad”.

Zelensky demanded that the military, who fought at the front, be put in charge of recruitment.

At the end of July, the Ukrainian authorities also announced the arrest of a former commissar of the Armed Forces, responsible for mobilization and accused of corruption.

In the 18th month of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian army, which has been conducting a heavy counter-offensive in the south and east of Ukraine since the beginning of June, remains silent about the losses suffered.

Fighting corruption, an endemic evil in Ukraine, which was already one of the poorest countries in Europe before the Russian invasion, is one of the conditions put forward by the European Union to preserve Kyiv’s status as a candidate for membership.

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