The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in his address to the nation last night, acknowledged the existence of hundreds of cases of fraud by state officials in obtaining disability certificates, which exempt them from going to war and grant them public financial assistance. Zelensky mentioned abuses by the agency responsible for issuing these certificates and fraudulent disability among officials.
After meeting with ministers and military and security chiefs, a scandal arose with the detention of a regional head of the agency who allegedly enriched herself by selling these certificates. It was discovered that most prosecutors in the Khmelnytsky region in eastern Ukraine had the status of disabled, allowing them to receive additional assistance on top of their salaries, obtaining the certificates before the war began. These revelations led to the resignation of the Ukrainian Attorney General, Andriy Kostin.
Zelensky pointed out that not only prosecutors were benefiting from disability certificates irregularly, but also customs officials, tax officials, pension fund workers, and local administration officials. He proposed the abolition of the agency in charge of issuing certificates and the establishment of a new digitalized system to assess and grant the certificates.
The Ukrainian president emphasized the difficulty that some people with genuine disabilities, especially those injured in combat, face in obtaining the certificates and corresponding assistance due to system failures. The Security Service of Ukraine reported that it had identified more than four thousand fraud cases in the issuance of disability certificates since the start of the war, investigating 64 officials responsible for issuing them.
