“Well, if you find him, let me know too”: In Zaporizhzhya, the TRC declared a man wanted who died of cancer 5 years ago

“Well, if you find him, let me know too”: In Zaporizhzhya, the TRC declared a man wanted who died of cancer 5 years ago

In Zaporizhzhya, the widow of Nazar Savchuk, who died of cancer, received a phone call from law enforcement informing her that the territorial recruitment and social support center (TRC and SS) had declared her husband wanted. Viktoriya Martynyuk’s situation, which became public thanks to the Threads social network, highlighted a systemic problem: due to technical errors and lack of synchronization between state registers, relatives are forced for years to confirm the deaths of their loved ones. In addition to bureaucratic difficulties, such situations become an additional moral trial for family members, who have to relive traumatic memories of loss.

Why death data recorded back in 2021 is not reflected in databases and how lawyers advise reacting to such challenges — in the Suspilne material.

On April 19, Zaporizhzhya resident Viktoriya Martynyuk received a call from an unknown number. The man, who introduced himself as a police major, informed the woman that her late husband had been declared wanted by the TRC. She responded:

"It was very strange... My Nazar died back in 2021, it was severe cancer, accompanied by doctors. When he died, of course, the police and doctors came, everyone knew everything... When I wrote a post about it on Threads, a lot of people wrote, not only women, but men too, about summonses, about the TRC, and that they are looking for people who died long ago. Some women wrote that they had taken the death certificate to the police four or five times, but to no avail."

On the Threads social network, the woman’s post was not only supported, but users also shared similar stories.

Viktoriya Martynyuk shares: thanks to working with a psychologist, she now reacts more or less normally to questions about her husband’s death:

"But I don’t know how women who have just lost their husbands would react when they are told to bring documents, to renew them. It’s hard, it’s hard. And if they ask why all these reserves, all our actions then? Everyone knows everything, but bring it."

Reporters  tried to figure out why such misunderstandings happen and sent an inquiry to the Zaporizhzhya TRC and SS. They explained that inquiries to all state registers for data updates always precede appeals to the police. However, due to technical glitches or delays in synchronization with the civil registry databases, information about a person’s death may be missing from the system:

"In connection with situations that are gaining public resonance, officials have now initiated additional inquiries to the civil registry offices to establish the reasons for the failure to receive information and obtain its documentary confirmation," — the response to Suspilne Zaporizhzhya states.

The National Police Main Directorate  stated in a comment: regarding Nazar Savchuk, there is no corresponding death record in the state civil registration bodies.

Advocate Dmytro Hladkyi, like the commentators on Threads, emphasizes that such cases are not isolated. They occur due to discrepancies between state databases. However, he stresses that a summons to appear concerns only the person being summoned:

"For relatives or heirs, such a summons does not entail legal obligations. Of course, if people wish, they can meet the state halfway and provide certain copies of documents confirming that the person has passed away or, for example, is not at the place of registration, and provide such documents."