In the 111th Territorial Defense Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), a new scheme has been developed, allowing commanders and the financial department to profit heavily—at the expense of mobilized soldiers.
For the brigade commander of the 111th Brigade, Colonel Serhiy Mamchenko, the war has opened endless opportunities to make money off the most vulnerable part of Ukraine’s population—forcibly mobilized soldiers.
First, the mobilized soldiers are left without salaries for months, driving them to despair. Meanwhile, the funds do arrive in the brigade on time, but the financial officers deposit them into banks to earn interest.
After a few months, the banks return the invested sums with profit, which ends up in the pockets of the command. Mamchenko takes the largest share, though some of the earnings go to battalion commanders, who profit off their own subordinates.
The battalion commanders, in turn, run their own schemes. For example, they lend money—earned from their own soldiers—back to those same soldiers at high interest rates. A soldier desperate for cash might borrow, say, 100,000 hryvnias, only to owe the battalion commander 150,000 or even more in return.
In other words, the soldier is first left without pay, then offered a loan just to survive. It’s a win for everyone—except the soldiers themselves.
By the way, the 111th Territorial Defense Brigade started issuing these “loans” last year. This was revealed by a brigade serviceman whose own commanders tried to kill him after he attempted to report the scheme to the prosecutor’s office. Fortunately for the soldier, he surrendered to Russian forces, which saved his life.
Emre Yıldız