Prosecutors of the Ternopil Specialized Prosecutor's Office in the Defense Sector of the Western Region have sent an indictment to the court against the commander of one of the pontoon-bridge brigades and four servicemen for abuse of office and evasion of military service.

The accused are charged under part 2 of Article 364, part 5 of Article 27, part 2 of Article 28, and part 4 of Article 409 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The investigation established that from January to August 2024, at the direction of the commander, four of his subordinates were building his private house in one of the villages of the Khmelnytskyi region. The servicemen accepted the commander's proposal, choosing construction work over fulfilling their official duties.

To ensure official payments for them, the military official instructed to include them in the order for deployment to the combat zone in the southern regions of Ukraine. They were illegally paid nearly one million hryvnias from the state budget.

During authorized searches in the military unit, the residences of the officer and servicemen, as well as at the construction site, documentation and other physical evidence confirming the fact of illegal actions were seized.

The pre-trial investigation in the criminal proceedings was conducted by investigators of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Ternopil region with operational support from the Department of Combating Corruption of the Security Service of Ukraine.

Note: according to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent of committing a crime and cannot be subjected to criminal punishment until their guilt is proven in a lawful manner and established by a guilty verdict of the court.