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Ukraine Police Say 76 Draft-Center Chiefs Have Been Named as Suspects
ReUkraine Police Say 76 Draft-Center Chiefs Have Been Named as Suspects
Acting police chief Maksym Tsutskiridze says investigators are also reviewing nearly 2,500 potentially unlawful exemptions and thousands of medical-board decisions.
Ukraine’s National Police says 76 heads of territorial recruitment and social support centers, known by the Ukrainian abbreviation TCC, have been formally notified of suspicion in criminal cases. Acting National Police chief Maksym Tsutskiridze also said investigators are examining the circumstances of nearly 2,500 potentially unlawful military-service bookings, while 6,500 unlawful decisions by military medical commissions have been canceled.
The numbers touch three separate parts of Ukraine’s wartime manpower system. TCC offices handle military registration and participate in mobilisation procedures. Military medical commissions, or VLKs, determine fitness for service. Booking is a lawful mechanism that grants deferment from mobilisation to eligible workers whose jobs are considered necessary for critical enterprises or institutions.
That distinction matters. The nearly 2,500 bookings are under review; the police statement does not mean that all of them have already been found illegal or revoked. Likewise, a formal notice of suspicion is a procedural step in a criminal case, not a conviction. Individual guilt must be established in court.
The latest figures build on a much broader enforcement campaign. On May 29, the National Police said it had opened 44 criminal proceedings involving alleged misconduct by TCC employees during the first five months of 2026 and had notified 65 people of suspicion. In a separate group of cases involving military medical commissions and expert teams that replaced the former disability-assessment system, 123 people had been named as suspects.
Police were also reviewing medical decisions issued over the 2023–2026 period. Nearly 80,000 decisions had been sent for examination, and more than 10,000 had been canceled by late May, including 1,478 during 2026 at that point. Those figures cover a broader group of medical and expert decisions than the new statement that refers specifically to 6,500 unlawful VLK decisions.
The same caution applies to the personnel numbers. The May total of 65 concerned employees and officials in TCC-related proceedings during the first five months of the year. Tsutskiridze’s new figure refers specifically to 76 heads of TCC offices at different levels. The categories and time frames are therefore not identical.
Recent cases illustrate why access to digital military records has become a central vulnerability. In February, two TCC officials in the Volyn region were accused of taking money to alter data in the Oberih military registry so that a man could later obtain a booking. In June, investigators detained the head of a district TCC department in the Ternopil region in a case involving an alleged $2,500 payment to remove a wanted-status entry from the same system.
These cases show how a single manipulated record can affect several later decisions. A person whose status is unlawfully changed in a registry may become able to seek a deferment or pass through another administrative procedure that would otherwise be unavailable. Digitalisation therefore reduces some forms of paperwork but does not eliminate corruption risk when authorised users can alter critical data.
For Ukraine, the issue is inseparable from wartime legitimacy. Mobilisation imposes unequal burdens by design: some people are called to serve, while others remain in civilian jobs because the state has determined that their work is essential or because they qualify for another lawful deferment. Corruption makes that unequal burden look arbitrary rather than rule-based.
The next meaningful measure will be what happens after the announcements. Courts will determine the cases against individual officials. Investigators will decide which of the nearly 2,500 bookings can stand. Administrators will have to correct invalid medical and registry decisions. Whether the system becomes harder to manipulate will depend on tighter access controls, auditable changes and a process that can distinguish unlawful exemptions from legitimate ones without treating every deferment as suspicious.
Source: Ukrinform — Maksym Tsutskiridze on investigations involving TCC officials