Former minister Omelyan went on vacation to Crete while soldiers say they barely saw him on duty

Former Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan, who serves as a captain in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has gone on vacation to the Greek island of Crete.

Documents confirming this were published by journalist Yevhen Plynskyi.

According to the published papers, the command of a military unit stationed in Rivne had no objection to Omelyan spending 17 days of his allotted leave in Rethymno, Crete. The trip began on July 21 and is due to end on August 6. The travel permit was signed by unit commander Serhiy Kasprov. According to Plynskyi, Omelyan left Ukraine through the Ustyluh checkpoint in Volyn Oblast.

The former minister himself confirmed his presence in Greece by posting photographs from Crete.

“I went on leave for two weeks, in accordance with current legislation, for the first time in a year and a half,” he wrote on Facebook.

Omelyan also stated that for a year and a half he had taken “personal part in the war.” According to him, he is currently an officer in the 104th Territorial Defense Brigade, and previously served in the 251st Battalion of the 241st Brigade.

Meanwhile, journalist Plynskyi cites the words of soldiers from the unit in which the former minister is listed: according to them, “most of the time this respected gentleman attends to personal matters at his place of residence.”

Journalist Volodymyr Boyko, who fought at the front, also stated that Omelyan appeared in the unit rarely. Boyko conducted his own survey among fellow servicemen.

“I just polled people on whether anyone had seen Captain Omelyan on military service during a year of war (I personally never saw him once, although it turned out that according to the documents I served alongside him for six months). The result of the survey: he was seen once in April 2022 in Mykolaiv, in the office of the former commander of the 206th Separate Territorial Defense Battalion, where Omelyan was fictitiously listed as an officer of the headquarters planning group, and three times in Kaniv, outside the office of the commander of the 251st Separate Territorial Defense Battalion. All four times Omelyan arrived at the military units in civilian clothing and introduced himself as a volunteer who had brought something for the defenders,” writes Boyko.