Law enforcement has detained two assistants to national deputies from the banned "Opposition Platform — For Life" party. According to the investigation of the SBU and DBR, they promised military conscripts to organize border crossings outside official checkpoints — they took money and disappeared. They have been informed of suspicion of fraud on a large scale.
How the scheme worked
The victims contacted the suspects, counting on real connections within the system: the status of "parliamentary assistant" a priori signaled access to resources and people in power. This is what the scheme was built on — not on a specific promise of documents, but on the illusion of insider access.
According to the investigation, the suspects misled people, received funds, and ceased all contact. How many people were affected and what amounts are involved in the case has not been officially clarified — the investigation is ongoing.
"The criminals deceived military conscripts by promising to organize border crossings outside checkpoints"
SBU and DBR — in a joint statement
OPZZ: party is banned, mandates — mostly not
Context matters: OPZZ was banned in Ukraine back in 2022 — the court ruled based on evidence of the party's support for Russia's aggressive anti-Ukrainian policy. However, most of the 44 deputies from the former faction retained their parliamentary mandates by moving to other groups or becoming non-affiliated.
This means that hundreds of assistants formally registered to OPZZ deputies can still use this status. According to Slovo i Dila, only in the OPZZ faction of the 9th convocation there were 508 assistants for 44 deputies — more than 11 per deputy on average.
A broader pattern
This case is not isolated. Several current and former deputies have already been held accountable for schemes involving military conscripts crossing the border. In particular:
- National Deputy Oleksandr Dubinsky and his former assistant are in lawsuits over illegal smuggling of people across the border using "Shlyakh" system documents.
- The DBR and the Office of the Prosecutor General sent to court a case of a deputy who submitted false information in documents for his own border crossing.
- In 2025, seven current deputies received suspicions of various crimes — and this is only official statistics from one agency.
It is telling that in all high-profile border crossing cases, either the status of a deputy or his apparatus — assistants, consultants, documents about "business trips" — plays a role. The instrument is not corruption within the TCC, but the parliamentary shell as a sign of legitimacy.
Unanswered questions
Are law enforcement currently checking other parliamentary assistants from the former OPZZ for similar schemes — and if not, why not, given that the party had over 500 assistants and most mandates remain valid?
