Nepotism, bribes, coercion: journalists reported on corruption in the TCC

There is widespread corruption in territorial recruitment and social support centers. For money, draft-eligible men may be overlooked during checks, not entered into the wanted database, or even helped to escape on the way to a unit. At the same time, the number of summonses being issued is falling.

This is reported by Ukrainska Pravda, citing enlistment officers.

One of the outlet’s sources said that about $2,000 can be earned for “losing” a mobilized person, while the official fine is 20,000 hryvnias. The article also mentions cases in which certain people are removed from the wanted list on orders from above and then receive exemption status. There is also a patronage system inside the TCCs: staff are ordered not to touch their own people.

At the same time, every TCC employee has daily, weekly, and monthly targets for the number of men who must be transferred to the armed forces. If they fail to meet these targets, pressure is put on them: they are threatened with being sent to the front or punished with nighttime formations. According to the servicemen, the commanders themselves often avoid the front by using fake medical certificates.

Enlistment officers describe the work of notification groups as coercive and demoralizing. According to one serviceman, “nobody wants to do this,” but the leadership demands that quotas be met. The effectiveness of these “notifications” is falling every day: whereas previously dozens of summonses might be handed out in a day, now sometimes only one is delivered in 16 hours.

As the publication writes, attitudes toward the TCC are sharply negative even within the army. One serviceman admitted to journalists: “When you’re a TCC officer, the military hate you, civilians hate you, and your own superiors hate you.” Civilians see enlistment officers as a threat, while soldiers at the front see them as people hiding out in the rear.

Ukrainska Pravda also separately described the situation in villages. According to its sources, many settlements empty out when patrols appear: men hide or run away. As a result, patrols sometimes just drive around for nothing, because “there is no one left to catch.”

Earlier this month, the same outlet published a list of illegal TCC “services” with price tags. Some of them cost as much as $25,000 to $50,000.