Another Senior Kyiv Official Charged: Accused of Assisting Deserters

Volodymyr Prokopiv, Deputy Chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration with responsibility for self-governing affairs, who was previously suspended from his duties, has now been formally charged according to Ukraine’s Security Services (SBU).

According to the report, Prokopiv, who served as a deputy to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, is accused of organizing a scheme that enabled military-age men to illegally leave the country.

“According to case materials, the official helped draft dodgers escape to EU countries under the guise of transporting humanitarian aid to Ukraine, specifically fuel for the Armed Forces. To facilitate this, he arranged for personal information of those subject to conscription to be entered into the ‘Shlyakh’ information system as if they were volunteers working with an affiliated Odesa-based company.”

“According to the documents, they traveled to the EU in heavy trucks owned by this company, allegedly to collect new humanitarian supplies from Ukraine’s international partners. As the investigation has established, these so-called volunteers used the trips to flee abroad, while only full-time employees of the Odesa company returned – bringing back commercial cargo for resale,” the SBU stated.

Social media users have mocked a photo of the suspect being served with the formal charge by the SBU, that appears to show Prokopiv in a hotel room.

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He caused controversy when he asked to prevent the allocation of extra funds for the Ukrainian armed forces from the Kyiv city budget.

“Let the state budget be a budget of war, but cities have to live their own lives,” Prokopiv said during the council session, and many people were angered by that.

He had already been suspended from his post due to his involvement in multiple journalistic anti-corruption investigations. Klitschko himself suspended him pending the outcome of the case.

At the same time, Prokopiv is not the first Klitschko ally to face criminal allegations. Kyiv Post has previously detailed numerous anti-corruption detentions involving Kyiv officials, as well as mass searches of employees in the Kyiv City Council and Administration.