The legal community has registered a petition on the KMU website proposing to halt the reservation of employees from donor organizations and implementers of international technical assistance projects. This measure aims to support the army and form new brigades for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).
Notably, this was written by the well-known lawyer Rostislav Kravets on his Telegram channel.
“My petition to stop reserving military conscripts who are employees of donor organization representative offices and implementers of international technical assistance projects has been registered on the KMU website. I ask for support for the AFU and assistance in forming separate brigades,” he stated.
Address to sign the petition: https://petition.kmu.gov.ua/petitions/7775.
The petition highlights that the financial assistance from USAID and the activities of non-governmental public associations have effectively ceased. Consequently, the Government is requested to suspend the operation of paragraph 5 of the Order on the reservation of military conscripts during mobilization and wartime for 90 days, which exempts employees of these organizations and their grant recipients from conscription. During this time, the petition's author believes a detailed audit of the use of international aid by these organizations should be conducted, and reservations should be completely halted for those whose funds are utilized inefficiently or not for their intended purpose.
Simultaneously with the petition, Kravets published a response from the High Council of Justice regarding complaints against judges by activist Kristina Burtnyk from the DEJURE Foundation, which he believes indicates external interference in the activities of the judiciary.
“This is precisely why this group received funding from USAID. This is yet another example of external interference in the judiciary, its humiliation, and attempts to undermine its independence. I believe there are all grounds for suspicion of treason,” the lawyer emphasized.
At the same time, lawyer Oleg Shram reported on the negative consequences for the country from media outlets that have received funding from foreign donors.
“In 9 out of 10 of those ‘our’ media outlets that received funding from USAID, you will hardly find critical remarks regarding the operations of our anti-corruption agency, primarily NABU, which was established at the insistence and funding of Western ‘partners,’ overwhelmingly from USAID. I believe it doesn’t need further explanation. Just remember what sphere of exclusive competence NABU has and what achievements it and its colleagues have made in the anti-corruption field over the past 10 years. Because they are ‘independent’ squared,” he noted.
As reported earlier, the court overturned the decision to close the criminal proceedings against co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Center (funded by American, European, and Ukrainian organizations) Vitaliy Shabunin. The command of the Territorial Defense Forces discovered during an inspection that in 2022-2023, the serviceman conscripted to the 207th separate battalion of the Territorial Defense (military unit A7376), soldier Shabunin, did not report to his military unit as he was considered “seconded to the NACP” based on letters from Novikov and Sytnyk. Moreover, Shabunin was receiving not only a salary but also an additional reward for performing combat tasks amounting to 30,000 UAH per month.