In the name of the emperor

At the end of February, the government prohibited volunteers from using the “Shliakh” system due to numerous cases of its abuse, including the departure of draft-age men from the country.

In almost three years, NGL.media has written a lot about this abuse, and we still reveal ever more disgusting cases. This time, we discovered that the Lviv regional military administration (LRMA) approved the departure of men abroad based on the letters from the fictitious NGO, which, as a mockery, contained the signature of the Russian emperor Alexander III.

This investigation has become possible thanks to the participants of the NGL.media community, who have access to special content and possibilities. 

…The first year of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war. On a late November evening, Oleksii Shevchuk, the then outside advisor of the LRMA, was driving to the Polish border. He was accompanied in the car by Artem Lushchan, a resident of Dnipro, who had just celebrated his 25^th birthday.

They both succeeded in crossing the border, because three days before, at the request of NGO “Humanitarian Hope of the Nation”, Artem Lushchan had received a permit to depart, signed by the head of the LRMA — he had been added to the “Shliakh” system as a volunteer driver for “bringing humanitarian cargoes across the state border of Ukraine”.

Three days later, Shevchuk came back to Ukraine, but Lushchan didn’t. Judging by his social network accounts, he still lives abroad.

A fake organization

You will find nothing about the “Humanitarian Hope of the Nation” which calls itself either an NGO, or “a Ukrainian-French group”. There is nothing in the Ukrainian and French registers. The official response of the Ministry of Justice is that there is no information about this organization. The email address from which the letter was sent to the LRMA with the request to allow Artem Lushchan to leave does not function either.

Moreover, the official letter to the LRMA was executed by this organization with evident mockery, using the logo of the Russian “Gazprombank” and the signature of the Russian emperor of the late XIX century, Alexander ІІІ. They also used a common random surname for the organization director – Oleksandr Nikolenko. About 500 people with this name and surname live in Ukraine alone.

A signature of the Russian emperor, Alexander III, copied from Wikipedia, was used in the letters, sent to the LRMA

Fakes with no guilty parties

In autumn 2022, the Lviv RMA received a total of five letters from the “Humanitarian Hope of the Nation”. The orders to approve the departure abroad, signed by Maksym Kozytskyi, the head of the LRMA, were given either on the same day or on the following one. Eight men were allowed to leave. 

One of them was the abovementioned Artem Lushchan. NGL.media managed to find out that in November, he crossed the border not only with Oleksii Shevchuk, but also with Ihor Fesan – the head and founder of “Stepan Bandera Charitable Foundation,” which is in the state of suspension now. 

NGL.media reported about this foundation in 2023, because almost three hundred of its representatives obtained permits to leave, and some of them didn’t come back. At that time, Fesan explained that at the request of the LRMA, his foundation was transporting humanitarian aid to their general depot, headed by Oleksii Shevchuk, who was also the then head of the coordination headquarters on the issues of humanitarian aid distribution in the LRMA. 

Fesan claimed that personally, he, as the head of the foundation, neither wrote nor signed any letters to the LRMA, because “it was done in a centralized way”. But he didn’t confess who wrote those letters. We called him again to talk about the trip with Shevchuk, but the subscriber “can’t take your call” anymore.

According to the data, analyzed by NGL.media, at least seven out of eight men, allowed to leave at the request of the “Humanitarian Hope of the Nation”, didn’t come back to Ukraine. They left by car, by train, and even crossed the border on foot – as a rule, a few days after receiving the orders, signed by the head of the LRMA.

One of them is Serhii Valivodz, who left on November 9, 2022 – he actually obtained two such permits. At first, he was introduced to the “Shliakh” system at the request of the “Humanitarian Hope of the Nation”, and then again, on October 31, as per the one from the NGO “Lvivskyi mandrivnyk” [“Lviv Traveller”]. Such a legal entity doesn’t exist in Ukraine. So, this might be another ghost organization.

NGL.media hasn’t succeeded in obtaining comments from men who left Ukraine via the “Humanitarian Hope of the Nation”. Oleksii Shevchuk, to whom we sent the inquiry, didn’t want to communicate either.

In the Lviv RMA, we were told that they are aware of only one driver from the “Humanitarian Hope of the Nation” who violated the terms of staying abroad, but they don’t tell his name. After the notice of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, his right to depart was revoked.

As for the question about approving the departure based on the letters of a fake organization, the LRMA wrote back only that “the responsibility for the reliability of the submitted data, specified in the letters, is borne exclusively by the applicants who sent them”.

The author Oleksandra Hubytska, editor Oleh Onysko, translation Nelya Plakhota, cover Nazar Tuziak