Ukrainian Prosecutor General resigns following draft-dodging scandal

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin has submitted his resignation after it emerged that staff at his department had feigned disability to avoid military service, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced on Tuesday.

In a statement on Tuesday, Kostin, who was voted in as Prosecutor General in July 2022 by Ukraine’s parliament, called the situation with false disabilities for state officials “obviously immoral”, noting that “many shameful facts of abuse” had been uncovered in Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Offices.

“Given the situation, I think it is only right to announce that I resign my position as Prosecutor General,” Kostin said.

Kostin’s resignation followed a National Security and Defence Council Meeting headed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said in a statement on Tuesday that “hundreds of obviously unjustified disabilities” had been revealed among Ukrainian government officials.

Vasyl Malyuk, head of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), said after the meeting that the SBU had cancelled over 4,000 fake disability status certificates this year after exposing corruption schemes at the country’s medical examination commissions, which determine whether a person is fit for military service.

Zelensky stressed that the current procedure of medical examination commissions “should be abolished” to deal with the violations “thoroughly and promptly”, adding that “for real and systemic change”, Ukraine needed to “fully digitise all stages of disability assessment”.

“The problem is not only that officials become disabled through connections, but also that people who have been genuinely disabled — in particular, in combat — often cannot get the appropriate status and fair payments,” Zelensky continued, noting that all government officials involved in such schemes must bear “personal responsibility”.