The National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine chaired by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy convened for a meeting today. It was decided to dismiss the heads of all regional territorial recruitment centres (military enlistment offices), as stated on the president's website and in his video address.
During the inspection of the recruitment centres, law-enforcement agencies exposed cases of corruption, in particular during the general mobilisation. These cases pose a threat to Ukraine's national security and undermine confidence in state institutions.
In this regard, the National Security Council recommended that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, appoint officers who are directly involved in combat operations to the positions of heads of regional TRCs on the recommendations of the heads of operational and tactical and operational-strategic groups, after they have been vetted by the Security Service of Ukraine.
"In total, there are 112 criminal proceedings against officials of the military commissariats and 33 suspicions. Our decisions: we are dismissing all regional military commissars. This system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and bribery during war are high treason. Instead, soldiers who have had frontline experience or who cannot be in the trenches because they had their health ruined, lost their limbs, but have retained their dignity and have no cynicism – they are the ones who can be entrusted with this recruitment system," the president said.
The results of the inspection of the territorial recruitment and social support centres were reported by Oleksiy Sukhachov, director of the State Bureau of Investigation, Vasyl Malyuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin, Oleksandr Novikov, head of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption, and Semen Kryvonos, director of the National Anticorruption Bureau.
The Prosecutor-General's Office, together with the NAPC and the SBI, was instructed to take additional measures to counteract corruption offences committed by TRC officials.