Nashi Groshi.Lviv editorial team gained access to the database of volunteers registered in Shliakh information system by Lviv Regional Military Administration (Lviv RMA) at the request of various non-governmental organizations. Our analysis proves that interconnected organizations never observed conducting volunteer activity were among the most successful applicants, and some share of their «volunteers» just fled the country.
We also found the entire cluster of such organizations connected with Oleksii Shevchuk, the former freelance advisor on humanitarian aid and volunteer activity to the head of Lviv RMA. It was him who had been in charge of Lviv RMA’s coordination headquarters on humanitarian aid provision.
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For almost six months we’ve been trying to obtain official information about draft dodgers who used Shliakh information system to flee Ukraine and names of organizations who were making profit from it. According to preliminary data from the interim investigative committee of Verkhovna Rada [the Parliament], we talk about almost 9,400 military aged men who left through Shliakh information system and never returned.
This figure was published two months ago, but the public knows neither the names of NGOs nor the names of runaways and organizers. Representatives of parliamentary investigative committee refused to give NGL information about dubious charity or non-governmental organizations and their «volunteers». The same did the Border Guard Service and «UkrTransBezpeka», the system administrator.
Still, NGL editorial team managed to gain access to the data store containing orders of Lviv RMA about recording in Shliakh information system. We talk about almost 1,800 organizations at whose request over 32,000 permits to leave the country were issued. That’s how we managed to make a list of leaders among the applicants at whose request hundreds of names were entered into Shliakh system.
In total, the top twenty organizations that received the most approvals to leave the country for men include known organizations like «Lviv IT Cluster» (280 people), «People’s self-defence Lviv» (200) or UAF «Movement to future» (365) initiated by Hryhorii Kozlovskyi’s football club «Rukh». These are real organizations whose activity is easy to trace.
Volunteers from regional warehouse
However, we found a number of regular applicants to Lviv RMA we know nothing about. It would be ok, but hundreds of people from them were entered into Shliakh. It could be explained by the fact that numerous foundations were registered following the full-scale invasion. Young organizations… No wonder they have no websites or pages with reports on the social media. Strange enough, there are no relevant phone numbers, connection with founders and management. It looks like they’re hiding from journalists.
For instance, number one on the list of most «successful» applicants to Lviv RMA was «Chystyi Kyiv» charity foundation (385 people), named one of the main partners of Lviv RMA on humanitarian assistance. This organization was founded back in 2020, and a Facebook page appeared in late arch 2022, but it still contains only several posts dated by 26 March 2022.
Nevertheless, while describing it activity «Chystyi Kyiv» claims they shipped over 1,500 tons of humanitarian aid. We did find references to the assistance received from the foundation of the websites of local governance authorities, but they are really scarce. Similarly, several foundations mentioned «Chystyi Kyiv», but they failed to provide contacts of at least one person from this organization.
The volunteers we interviewed informed they were shipping humanitarian aid from Lviv RMA’s warehouses through «Chystyi Kyiv». To prove this, our editorial team has copies of invoices where the letterhead identifies Lviv RMA as a supplier, but the seal below belong to «Chystyi Kyiv».
In total, Lviv Regional Military Administration gave permits to leave the country almost to 400 men through «Chystyi Kyiv», including those whose volunteer participation is extremely dubious. For instance, in May 2022 a resident of Starosambirskyi district Ivan Mochulskyi having four previous convictions, presently put on the wanted list, managed to leave owing to this permit and of course never came back.
Head and founder of «Chystyi Kyiv» Maksym Tkachyk himself left the country back in August last year using the permit received from Lviv RMA.
Ihor Fesan, head and founder of «Blahodiinyi fond Stepana Bandery» (295 permits) which is presently in the process of termination also talked about working at the Lviv RMA warehouse. According to Fesan, at the request of Lviv Regional Military Administration his foundation together with the others was transporting humanitarian aid to the joint warehouse managed by Oleksii Shevchuk – aka the former head of coordination HQ on humanitarian aid provision of Lviv Regional Military Administration and advisor to Maksym Kozytskyi, Head of Lviv Regional Military Administration. Ihor Fesan states that he personally, as the head of the foundation, didn’t write or sign any requests to Lviv Regional Military Administration, as «it was managed on the centralized basis». So, who was doing it? He refused to answer any further questions.
Shevchuk’s group
It turned out there are even more organizations of this type that no one knows of. Most of them in one way or another are connected with Oleskii Sevchuk directly of Barristers whose ex-partner he is. Shevchuk’s lawyer’s license was suspended this year for violating the lawyer’s ethics.
A charity organization «Nashi dobri spravy», founded nine months age was among the most active organizations making use of Shliakh information system from Lviv RMA (270 men received the permit to leave the country). There’s neither website, nor Facebook page, nor publication in the media. This foundation is registered in Lviv at the address 29 Lypynskoho street, apt. 8. However, this building or apartment do not exist in the real estate register. In reality, a residential complex «Avalon Time» is situated at this address, but the numbers of their buildings also include letters.
«Nashi dobri spravy» is registered in the name of Ievhen Serhiiovych Korchynskyi from Ivankiv settlement in Kyiv region, but such a person doesn’t exist. A Ievhen Serhiiovych Korchemnyi, 31, is registered at this address in Ivankove, but neither his phones nor the email address are responding. We only managed to talk to his mother who promised to pass our contacts to her son, but Korchemnyi himself never called us back.
As NGL editorial team managed to find out, several dozen people from «Nashi dobri spravy» left the country and didn’t come back in due time.
At the same time, Korchemnyi was registered in Shliakh information system not from his organization, but from NGO «Nebaiduzhi hromadiany». A co-founder of this organization, according to YouControl, is no other than Oleksii Shevchuk. This organization and the related «Ukrainska hildiia aktyvistiv» have been already mentioned in the material «Went out, took a holiday, happy», because it was them who applied for a permit to leave the country for Nazarii Berbeka, a Lviv city council deputy. These two organizations registered almost 600 people in Shliakh system.
Like in the case of «Nashi dobri spravy», we didn’t manage to find any public information about humanitarian activity of «Nebaiduzhi hromadiany» and «Ukrainska hildiia aktyvistiv» or their relevant contacts. What we know for sure is the fact that both truck drivers (they mentioned they were delivering freights, but not only humanitarian) and draft dodgers managed to leave the country with their help.
According to the information provided by Lviv Regional Military Administration, letters from «Nebaiduzhi Hromadiany» were signed by «D. Lesniak». Most likely, they refer to Daria-Anastasiya Lesniak who is referred to as Barristers’ junior attorney. Her phone number Lviv Regional Military Administration gave us turned out to be invalid.
Another major user of Shliakh information system segment in Lviv is a Kyiv NGO «Hromadska ekolohichna initsiatyva» which is one of the founders of «Ukrainska hildiia aktyvistiv». However, we didn’t manage to find active founders or phone numbers of the organization either. Its Facebook page doesn’t mention a word about humanitarian work, nobody answers the indicated phone number and the website presently overflows with the information about casino.
$2,500 for Lviv «Shliakh»
Kyiv foundation «Bayraktar» also made the top-20 (220 people). Denys Syniavskyi, 19, founded it in summer last year, and now he’s a suspect in a criminal investigation about illegal transportation of men across the state border. It became known from the rulings in the court register that Cherkasy oblast law enforcement disposed «do-gooders» who used the order of Lviv Regional Military Administration to register a man who paid them $2,500 in Shliakh information system. By the way, one court ruling in this case states that unidentified officials of Lviv RMA refused to cooperate with the investigators or come to the interrogation.
Thanks to the data published on the court register we found that it wasn’t «Bayraktar» foundation founded by Syniavskyi that requested Lviv RMA to enter the draft dodger into Shliakh information system, but another organization, «Ukrainian Javelin», which received over 130 permits from Lviv Regional Military Administration. This organization was founded by Klym Khomenko, 32, Kyiv resident, in September 2022. However, «Ukrainian Javelin» has been in the state of «termination of activity» since January this year.
Getcontact app also identifies Klymenko’s phone number as Shevchuk’s assistant’s contact. Sometime before, in 2021, Shevchuk published a video where Khomenko is subtitled as «a representative of lawyer Oleksii Khomenko’s team».
A Tymur Karasiov is another suspect in Cherkasy case. We contacted his lawyers, but they denied us the possibility to communicate with Karasiov. However, it turned out that one of his lawyers is Dmytro Zeleniuk – a person with the same name is indicated as an assistant lawyer on Barristers website. Zeleniuk didn’t want to discuss it, and Barristers didn’t return our phone calls. Still, we managed to find a post published on the company’s Facebook page in April this year tagging him as a company’s lawyer.
We also noticed that the above-mentioned organizations applied for a permit to register both suspects in Shliakh information system: Karasiov was supported by «Chystyi Kyiv», and Syniavskyi – by his foundation «Bayraktar» and «Nashi dobri spravy», «Ukrainian Javelin» and «Slava natsii Ukrainy!».
The latter organization deserves a special word. The foundation «Slava natsii Ukrainy!» founded seven months ago by Dmytro Piven – a former assistant to Oleksii Shevchuk an another Barristers’ lawyer. Also, Piven is a co-founder of NGO «Sluzhba poriatunku tvaryn» which is among the founders of «Ukrainska hildiia aktyvistiv». Piven, like the founder of «Nashi dobri spravy», comes from the Ivankiv settlement. Truth be told, «Slava natsii Ukrainy!» received much smaller number of «Shliakh» approvals from Lviv Regional Military Administration (less than 90).
Another little-known organization is a foundation «Ukrainski kotyky» founded seven months ago by Bohdan Zabara, 31, who is another Barristers lawyer and Shevchuk’s assistant. In addition, Zabara is a co-founder of NGO «Sudovyi reporter» together with Dmytro Piven, a founder of the foundation “Slava natsii Ukrainy!» we mentioned above. When talking to NGL, Bohdan Zabara refused to provide any information about the foundation’s activity, as he believes it’s confidential.
The foundation «Kod-Palianytsia» is abother shady organization created in September last year by Oleksandr Zaiika, 26, from Luhansk region. It terminated its activity in February. Lviv Regional Military Administration registered more than one hundred men in Shliakh information system at this foundation’s request, though we found no references to its activity. The register doesn’t even contain the organization’s phone number.
P.S. Both Lviv Regional Military Administration and Oleksii Shevchuk refused to give an interview. Shevchuk refused to talk to us claiming he wasn’t sure he was talking to journalists and not frauds – despite the fact that previously he didn’t hesitate to give comments over the phone about the story of clandestine warehouse in Ubyni.
Andrii Hodyk, first deputy head of Lviv Regional Military Administration gave a written response to our request about the humanitarian aid brought in by organizations listed in this material, saying that «The Regional Military Administration doesn’t dispose of any information about humanitarian activity of the organizations in the period between 24 February 2022 and 20 May 2023 indicated in your request».
Andrii Hodyk also mentioned that in April last year Lviv RMA signed a memorandum of cooperation in humanitarian sphere with «Chystyi Kyiv» charity foundation and suggested we contact the foundation directly for more detailed information. However, as we’ve mentioned above, head of «Chystyi Kyiv» Maksym Tkachyk left the country back in August last year using the permit received from Lviv RMA.
This material was prepared with the financial support from National Endowment for Democracy. The publication contents is a sole responsibility of the editorial team and does not reflect the views of National Endowment for Democracy.