Police have searched the flat of Sviatoslav Litynskyi, a well-known Ukrainian language rights activist who now helps the Ukrainian Army by purchasing SUVs for frontline units.
As it turned out later, Litynskyi was searched by the Kyiv police in connection with the alleged embezzlement of donations under the guise of a charity fund and the sale of cars intended for military personnel.
Litynskyi’s case is the latest in a string of incidents where well-known activists are accused of stealing donations intended for the army. While theft of humanitarian aid can indeed be a real problem, the accusations of activists and volunteers suggest that they are a deliberate strategy of law enforcement.
Ukrainian customs rules have not been changed since the war’s start and often create insurmountable red tape obstacles for volunteers who aim to rapidly purchase and deliver items such as SUVs from abroad to the front. Thus, the volunteers take the risk of violating formalities for the sake of quickly helping frontline defenders.
In previous cases of similar accusations levied against volunteers, the agents reporting alleged wrongdoing were reported to have had connections to the police. And in at least one case, police had hinted they want to receive a bribe to close the case, Ukrainska Pravda reported. All of these issues have made Ukrainian volunteers helping the military victims of a flawed system, the newspaper writes.
