Bezuhla: No less than 30 thousand volunteers are hiding from mobilization in Kyiv

Bezuhla: No less than 30 thousand volunteers are hiding from mobilization in Kyiv

The former deputy head of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence emphasizes that there is a significant number of conscripted men in Kyiv who are avoiding mobilization through the VFTC units.

MP Maryana Bezuhla, a former member of the parliamentary Defence Committee, drew attention to the large number of participants in volunteer formations in the rear capital. She estimates their number in the tens of thousands of Kyiv residents and notes that this figure does not yet include other paramilitary formations in Kyiv, such as the "Municipal Guard". The informant reminds that the VFTC units in the capital perform not the most necessary functions - they are usually mentioned in scandals related to abuse of power by TRC staff, as well as racketeering and criminal "clashes".

The data on the number of VFTC (Voluntary formation of territorial communities) members were mentioned by Maryana Bezuhla in a post devoted to Vitaliy Klychko’s influence on the Kyiv Defence Council. According to Bezuhla, it depends on the mayor whether transportation in the capital will be stopped during air raids - his subordinates, the MP emphasizes, have a convincing majority in this meta-authority. However, the statistics in her post are of the greatest interest.

"In Kyiv, at least 30 thousand conscripted men are hiding from mobilization in the VFTC, and just Klychko’s personal guard, the ’Municipal Guard’, amounts to over a thousand ’adapted’ paramilitary citizens," said Maryana Bezuhla.

Indeed, there are quite a few voluntary formations in the capital, whose service allows their participants not to engage directly in combat actions. For instance, the VFTC unit "Mriya" under the leadership of former Constitutional Court judge and ex-MP Serhiy Sas ("Batkivshchyna") shoots down "Shaheds" with ancient "Maxim" machine guns left over from World War II. The Washington Post in mid-December 2024 drew attention to their activities: volunteers complained that over several years they had "even been awarded a bonus of $550".

There is also the VFTC "Left Bank Kyiv". According to its leadership, after the enemy was expelled from the north of the country (including Kyiv region) by the Armed Forces and the very same volunteer formations, the participants perform combat duty "as part of mobile fire groups of the 112th brigade, are involved in the protection and defence of critical infrastructure objects in the capital, patrol the streets of Kyiv during curfew, and help in the construction of fortifications and defence systems." And recently, one of the participants of the VFTC "Left Bank Kyiv", Andriy Khrushch, was involved in a scandal when, according to the owners of the Noice restaurant in Obolon, he tried to pressure its staff, attacked the owner’s car, and virtually demanded money.

There have also been other high-profile stories related to VFTC units in Kyiv. Thus, in mid-November, the Informant wrote about a shooting incident in the village of Shchaslyve near Kyiv. There, a TRC patrol entered the territory of a private logistics enterprise. And when one of the drivers started to flee, a VFTC fighter, who was inexplicably part of the TRC mobile patrol, opened fire on the fleeing man. If the enterprise’s employees hadn’t posted a video, this atrocious act would have gone unpunished - now law enforcement officers have classified the man’s actions under Part 4 of Article 296 of the Criminal Code (up to 7 years imprisonment).

Moreover, in November 2023, one of the volunteers of the VFTC "Legion Obolon" was detained for allegedly assisting in the smuggling of conscripted men across the border. It should be noted that, judging by reports from the National Police, this business is currently being taken over by serious criminal organizations - whether the detainee was connected to one of them is unknown, but the cover in the form of VFTC likely helped in conducting illegal activities.

It is worth noting that unofficially, the so-called service in the Kyiv VFTC allows relatively well-off city residents to avoid mobilization. Thus, voluntary assistance to the TRC (as in the Shchaslyve incident) or the semi-criminal activities of "defenders" in uniform (in the case of the restaurant in Obolon) provide a justification for the existence of paramilitary formations in the capital. In contrast, their fighters, who already have both weapons and equipment, could replace the exhausted forces of Ukrainian defenders who need rotation.