In response to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence’s public appeal, published on its official website, concerning how well recruitment centres perform their functions, the Zelenyi Lyst civic organisation is publishing the second part of the events experienced by its member, Serhii Bondarenko.
The first part, “The Hell of Going Through the Medical Board”, can be read at this link.
What follows is material on the work of the Odesa Regional and Prymorskyi District Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centres and the Military Law Enforcement Service, gathered by Serhii Bondarenko on an editorial assignment.
As it turned out, recruitment centre representatives are afraid of mobile phones. Most likely, they fear that people liable for military service will use their own mobile phones to contact lawyers, access legislation or simply record unlawful actions by recruitment centre staff.
On 4 May this year, I once again had to report, in response to a summons, to Odesa’s Prymorskyi District Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centre (hereafter, the Prymorskyi recruitment centre). At the entrance, I was told that their visiting rules had changed and that I therefore had to hand over my own mobile phone. Otherwise, the checkpoint staff would not be able to let me in, despite my summons.
As a law-abiding citizen, I know that military service is a special form of public service, and that the Constitution of Ukraine requires public officials to act solely on the basis of, within the powers of and in the manner provided for by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine. So I handed over my own mobile phone.
When I got home and searched the subject on Google, I realised that the Prymorskyi recruitment centre employee had been wrong: Ukrainian legislation contains no provisions of the kind he cited. I decided to get to the bottom of the matter, so I prepared a complaint to the Prymorskyi recruitment centre about the checkpoint staff’s actions, and a public information request to the regional recruitment centre concerning the document under which I supposedly had to surrender my own mobile phone at the entrance to a recruitment centre.
Incidentally, I have still received no response to the complaint submitted to the Prymorskyi recruitment centre.
But the regional recruitment centre provided an interesting response.
As we can see, the regional recruitment centre refers to an instruction requiring personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to do something. Naturally, the instruction does not apply to civilians. But the most telling part is the final paragraph, in which the regional recruitment centre explicitly states that it is not the holder of the instruction it itself cited. To understand the inadequacy of this response, one need only open the Law of Ukraine “On Access to Public Information” and verify that information received by an information holder is also public information.
Or, translated from bureaucratese into plain language, the regional recruitment centre told me that there is some instruction requiring something exclusively of military personnel, but that it had not received it — while making full use of it and extending its provisions to civilians as well.
With time available until 1 June, I contacted other military command bodies and eventually obtained a copy of this instruction, which the regional recruitment centre did not have.
On 1 June, I once again went to the Prymorskyi recruitment centre in response to a summons. Serviceman Hychka was sitting at the duty desk and demanded that I hand over my own mobile phone; otherwise, he would not let me into the Prymorskyi recruitment centre, despite the summons. First, I asked Hychka several times to put his demand in writing. Hychka played the stupid, deaf soldier and did not respond at all. Then I asked him several times to invite his commander into the centre’s lobby so that the commander could explain the reason for Hychka’s actions. Again, my requests were completely ignored.
Had I tried to force my way into the Prymorskyi recruitment centre, I would have been entirely in the wrong despite the summons. So, settling down in the lobby, I used the very phone whose use Hychka was so eager to restrict to start looking for what to do and whom to call.
My first call was to the Specialised Defence Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern Region. They explained that they consider only documents received from other bodies and suggested calling the police.
The police accepted the call on 102, but then a police officer called back and explained that it was outside their competence. When I asked what I should do, they advised me to contact the Military Law Enforcement Service.
I called the Military Law Enforcement Service and explained the situation. They told me they could not come to the Prymorskyi recruitment centre themselves at that moment, but suggested I visit them. Especially since they were not far away…
And then complete madness began… Hearing that I intended to go to the Military Law Enforcement Service, Hychka grandiosely demonstrated his power to the civilians in the Prymorskyi recruitment centre’s lobby. To humiliate my honour and dignity, he loudly gave a knowingly criminal oral order to the other servicemen on guard at the centre not to let me leave the premises.
Let us pause to analyse the legislation in force.
1. Both the Internal Service Statute and the Disciplinary Statute of the Armed Forces of Ukraine clearly stipulate that manifestly criminal orders must not be carried out.
2. The Constitution of Ukraine stipulates:
– Everyone is guaranteed freedom of movement (Article 33, paragraph 1);
– Giving and carrying out a manifestly criminal instruction or order entails legal liability (Article 60, paragraph 2)
3. Article 146 of the Criminal Code provides for liability for unlawful deprivation of liberty.
But despite the legal provisions in force, the guards, carrying out a knowingly criminal order, closed the door in front of me, preventing me from reaching the Military Law Enforcement Service.
For reasons I cannot understand, one of the guards, seeing that I was trying to leave the recruitment centre building but was not attacking them in any way, also began threatening me, telling me how they could break my ribs or even kill me. And can one disbelieve a trained, armed man?
Observing these events, serviceman Hychka realised that I had no intention of complying with his knowingly unlawful demands and asked me to wait a couple of minutes. When I stopped trying to leave the building, Hychka disappeared somewhere for 1.5–2 minutes and, on returning, allowed me to enter the recruitment centre with my own mobile phone.
On 2 June, I did visit the Military Law Enforcement Service, where I lodged a complaint about the recruitment centre servicemen’s actions. I attached the regional recruitment centre’s response stating that it had not received the instruction in question.
On 8 June, I once again went to the Prymorskyi recruitment centre in response to a summons. As I passed through the checkpoint, I observed the following: not a single serviceman asked any visitor to hand over a mobile phone.
In the second half of July, I received a response from the Military Law Enforcement Service.
The very first paragraph already distorted the facts, because it was not Hychka who threatened to kill me. There was more to come.
Supposedly, Hychka had asked me to hand over the phone on “lawful grounds”. Yet these “lawful grounds” were not specified in any way.
The Military Law Enforcement Service representatives then confirmed my conflict with Hychka but drew a very interesting conclusion: the fact that my phone remained with me showed that my rights had not been violated. In other words, from the military’s point of view, unlawfully depriving me of my liberty, threatening to kill me and servicemen carrying out a knowingly criminal order are not criminal offences.
Most likely, after the scandal involving Borysov began, some “bright spark” decided that recruitment centre visitors’ right to use their own mobile phones should be restricted. Yet this was not documented in any way. What they feared more — that visitors might record solicitations for bribes or something else — is anyone’s guess.
But after the scandal in which I was involved, this practice was very quickly wound down. Having received my complaint, the Military Law Enforcement Service representatives tried to shield the recruitment centre representatives, attempting to present Hychka’s actions as lawful, unaware that the centre had already stopped requiring visitors to surrender their own mobile phones.
Serhii Bondarenko, specially for Zelenyi Lyst.
On the basis of the material collected, the Zelenyi Lyst civic organisation submitted a corresponding statement to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
We hope the material collected will allow the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine to improve the work of territorial recruitment centres.